The Bottom Line: Sports Underdogs ‘Invincible’ No Longer

Enough already with the underdogs.

Ever since producer Jerry Bruckheimer petitioned us to Remember the Titans, we’ve endured countless fact-based Cinderella stories immortalizing the unlikeliest of sports heroes. We placed our trust in Coach Carter, sat under the Friday Night Lights, and relived the Miracle on ice.

But, six years after Remember the Titans, it’s become impossible to distinguish one true tale of triumph over adversity from the next. Glory Road was Titans on the basketball court. Put boxing gloves on Seabiscuit’s hoofs and you have another depression-era legend, Cinderella Man. And the rousing but stale Invincible (Aug. 25)—starring Mark Wahlberg as Vince Papale, a 30-year-old part-time bartender who defied all odds to land on the Philadelphia Eagles’ rooster in 1976—is practically a remake of The Rookie. And, worse, Wahlberg’s Rock Star.

Rather than inspire, these increasingly cookie-cutter accounts of real-life Rockys now generate the same apathy baseball fans in the Sunshine State harbor toward the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. In the last year, Cinderella Man, Dreamer, Glory Road and The Greatest Game Ever Played quickly went from contenders to bums.

But it aint over til it’s over. Which means Invincible isn’t the last attempt this year to make us cheer on the little guy.

The Rock sets the juvenile offenders of the Gridiron Gang (Sept. 15) on the straight and narrow by whipping them into football shape. In We Are Marshall (Dec. 22), Matthew McConaughey’s charged with rebuilding a college football team struck by tragedy. And Terrence Howard finds Pride (Dec. 22) as a Philadelphia swim coach taking a team of inner-city kids to the state championships.

Hollywood’s long paid tribute to America’s sports icons. But the biopic of the 1980s and 1990s seemed more concerned with exposing the sportsman behind the myth. And such warts-and-all character studies as The Babe, Cobb, Eight Men Out and Raging Bull weren’t embraced as strongly as their cheerful fictional counterparts Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Hoosiers and the Rocky sequels.

In 2000, Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer fine-tuned the formula that allowed the studio’s Cool Runnings–a true story of little-known Olympians played for laughs—to claim box office gold seven years earlier. And their uplifting Remember the Titans–a family-friendly but serious-minded and socially conscious history lesson involving the ultimate underdogs—now serves as the template for all sports biopics. And in the dark days after Election 2000 and 9/11, audiences happily sought comfort in the uncomplicated and seemingly honest feel-good tales spun by Miracle, The Rookie and Seabiscuit.

The sole exception was Michael Mann’s Ali, which owed more to Raging Bull than Remember the Titans in its scope, approach and candor. It also didn’t help that Will Smith never convinced anyone he was The Greatest, no matter how hard he tried.

Now, though, an Ali would be most welcomed. And that’s probably why the unashamedly downbeat Million Dollar Baby grossed more than any fact-based sports drama in the past 18 months. It wasn’t the same old sports story we’ve endured since 2000, and it had more on its mind than the pursuit of excellence. And, tired of being hammered over the head with the same motivational tactics, armchair athletes now just prefer to laugh at such farces as The Benchwarmers, The Longest Yard and Talladega Nights.

The Bottom Line 
Invincible will likely win over Monday morning quarterbacks, at least until the regular NFL season begins. For Gridiron Gang, Pride and We Are Marshall to succeed, their stories must be bigger than their stars. The Rock’s never carried a drama, Matthew McConaughey can’t be trusted to open anything other than a romantic comedy, and Terrence Howard is putting his newfound fame to the test. If these three films don’t distinguish themselves from others of their ilk, they’ll quickly be tagged losers. These days, we want need our real-life Davids to do more than just defeat the Goliaths they face.