"The Express": A goal line fumble

I knew Gary Fleder's flick about Ernie "The Express" Davis wasn't going to win the box-office weekend, but can anyone tell me how in the world it ended up finishing sixth with a seriously paltry take of $4.7 million (with those talking rat dogs on top for a second week in a row.)

Being such a solidly entertaining flick about college football, it certainly deserved a much better than fate than that. I've given up even wishing that movies can have a second-week rebound given our atrociously short attention spans, but if any movie deserves it this one certainly does.

As is the case when I'm watching movies, my mind always drifts to the ones already stored there, no matter how good the flick unfurling in front of me happens to be. In this case, Gary Fleder's "The Express" inevitably made me think of the basketball flick "Glory Road," and I can state definitively that Fleder's flick is superior to that crapfest in every way imaginable.

The main virtue of "The Express" is that it treats the huge role that race played in the story of Davis, the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy, with earnestness, but never lets that get in the way of telling a rousing tale.

Though Rob Brown gives it his all as Mr. Davis, he's playing a character so nice by design that he gets overshadowed by the many great supporting performances turned in for this one. Baltimore's own Charles S. "Roc" Dutton is perfect as Davis' grandfather "Pops," and in smaller roles Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette on the seriously satisfying "True Blood") shines as Davis' brother Will and Omar Benson Miller - who is having a banner year with this role and his work as the "chocolate giant" in Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna" - makes the most of all his screen time as big Syracuse lineman Jack Buckley.

Fleder's flick is at its best when the two primary forces of race and football collide on the actual gridiron, as they do at their most combustible in Morgantown, W. Va., and Dallas, Texas, in the Cotton Bowl. And it's in this volatile cauldron that the character of Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder, played with spirit by Dennis Quaid, comes to the fore.

Fleder resists any impulse to make Schwartzwalder into anything approaching a saint, never forgetting that he was a very practical man much more interested in winning than advancing any kind of cause when he brought first Jim Brown and then Davis into the Syracuse program. How he uses these players is an insightful window into the factory nature of college football that clearly still persists and thrives today.

Which, with all that good mojo going for it, makes the final act of Fleder's flick such a horrendous disappointment. Now, just in case you're among the many, many people who haven't seen this one yet, I don't want to tell you exactly how Davis' story comes to an end, but let's just say it's easily one of the great personal tragedies in all of sport.

In the hands of Fleder, however, it's amazingly sort of swept under the rug, just brought up casually in the last 15 minutes or so and dismissed without any change in tone or approach. It's as if Fleder looked at his watch (as I would have been if I ever wore a watch, with the Georgia-Tennessee kickoff quickly approaching) and just said to himself "OK, this has already gone for about two hours, so let's just wrap it up." Which is in itself a minor tragedy.

That said, for the first nearly two hours Fleder's flick delivers a solidly entertaining tale, which is a sight more than you can say about a lot of the other movies out there this year. And, not having seen the latter, I still have to be fairly certain that it has to be better than that talking rat dog flick, so just see it already.

"Express" aisle: My top 10 favorite sports flicks

Coincidentally enough, a look at the credits for last night's premiere of "Life on Mars" revealed it was directed by Gary Fleder, who also directed this week's "The Express," the inspiration for this list. I haven't bothered to tune in for any cop shows in the last 10 years or so except for "The Wire," but I think this one just might be a winner, based on both the rather remarkable cast (Harvey Keitel, Gretchen Mol and Michael Imperioli, among others) and fairly innovative story about a cop who does the time warp back to 1973.

And I'm fairly certain I've done a list of at least my favorite baseball movies before, which could certainly also go to more than 10. For this list encompassing all sports (and two flicks that arguably aren't about sports at all), I found I had to leave off a full four boxing movies that just missed the cut ("Requiem for a Heavyweight", "Someone Up There Likes Me" [in honor of Paul Newman], "The Hurricane" and "Raging Bull.") Given that caveat, here are my 10 favorite sports movies, and as always, please feel free to add any of your favorites among the many, many flicks I have snubbed.

"The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg"
Even more than boxing movies, I just love flicks about baseball, and this doco was directed with clear love for a great man by Aviva Kempner. Without taking away AT ALL from what Jackie Robinson accomplished, it will really open your eyes when you see what hammerin' Hank had to go through as the first great Jewish player to slug for the Detroit Tigers.

"Hoop Dreams"
I can still remember watching Roger Ebert just go gaga for this flick when it first came out, and it's almost as good as his orgasmic review made it sound. Spike Lee's fictionalized version "He Got Game" is pretty good too, but it just can't pack as much punch as this true story of two Chicago kids who dream of playing in the NBA.

"Bend it Like Beckham"
Silly? Sure, but also just a heck of a lot of fun. I had to check the IMDB to see what in the world ever happened to director Gurinder Chadha after she made this flick about two girls (Keira Knightley back when she used to eat and Parminder Nagra of "ER" fame) who just want to play soccer and the extremely fun "Bride and Prejudice." It turns out she did indeed manage to direct a feature film in 2008, called "Angus, Thongs and Snogging," which will be added to my Netflix queue at the first opportunity.

"Vision Quest"
Like Matthew Modine, I had visions of becoming a wrestler in high school, but I never took it nearly as serious as he did or got to have Linda Fiorentino hanging around to inspire me. Sure, this one might be an adolescent fantasy, but it's also just a very entertaining flick.

"Eight Men Out"
Granted, "Field of Dreams" (which was on this list before I cut it back to 10 titles) is a much sweeter take on the story of Joe Jackson, but the real story is also very compelling as told by director Jon Sayles with help from John Cusack, John Mahoney, Charlie Sheen, DB Sweeney (as shoeless Joe himself, David Strathairn and even Michael Rooker and Gordon Clapp of "NYPD Blue" (the only cop show I regularly tuned in for between "Homicide" and "The Wire.")

"The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings"
Ben "Cooter" Jones (yes, that Cooter) stopped by our office about two weeks ago to promote his new book about his time on Capitol Hill as a Democratic representative from the great state of Georgia. When he got to me and someone told him I write about movies, he very proudly said he had a small part in this odd little flick about a colorful crew of ballplayers including Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams who barnstorm across the Midwest (even though most of the flick was filmed right here in Macon.) I love this one almost as much as Cooter does.

"Breaking Away"
Having sat beside Renee Martinez, who is both a serious cyclist and rather fanatical fan of the Tour de France, at work for the past five years or so means I've been exposed to more cycling than any nonfan should ever have to sit through. Even though I still protest otherwise, I have come to both respect and enjoy the sport of cycling, but not as much as I do this silly little movie about an Indiana "cutter" who just wants to ride with the Italians.

"When We Were Kings"
This is the only boxing movie that made the final cut because it's about a whole lot more than boxing. This Leon Gast doco about the 1974 heavyweight "Rumble in the Jungle" between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire is also about the crazy concert featuring James Brown, B.B. King and others that Mobutu Sese Suko put on to go with it. Add it all up and you've got a whale of a tale well told.

"Searching for Bobby Fischer"
OK, these last two aren't about real "sports" per se, but I defy you to find a better movie about the nature of raw competition than this 1993 flick about a young boy thrust into in the world of competitive chess. Interestingly, this one is one of three flicks directed by Steven Zaillian ("A Civil Action" and "All the King's Men" are the others), who would go on to pen "American Gangster" and soon "I Heard You Paint Houses" for Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro.

"Bring It On"
If you can actually look me in the eye and claim you don't enjoy this one as at least a guilty pleasure, I have to say you, sir or madam, are a liar. Kirsten Dunst, Gabrielle Union and Eliza Dushku as high school cheerleaders? I'm there, and I usually am for at least a few minutes every time this inevitably shows up on TBS' afternoon movie slate.

So, there you have it. Like I said, please feel free to add any of your favorite sports flicks, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend.