The Express in nothing more than a less successful Brian's Song set in the days of Jim Crow and unconscionable white supremacy.
Comment
10/09/08
The Express (2008)
62
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:110
Fresh:68
Rotten:42
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: This inspirational sports biopic set in the the civil rights era is interesting even for non-football fans, and features a great performance by Dennis Quaid as tough-but-fair football coach.
Theatrical Release:05-12-2008
Synopsis: As the first African American to receive college football's prestigious Heisman trophy, Ernie Davis (Rob Brown) is one of the most inspiring--and tragic--figures in the game (he died of leukemia at... [More]
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Rob Brown, Omar Benson Miller, Clancy Brown
Director: Gary Fleder
Reviews for The Express
If he is a little too glowingly perfect, a little too heroic, it adds to the mythic feeling of the story.
10/09/08
Inventing a Hollywood racist agenda where it didn't exist, because this concentrates on Ernie Davis the football player, it doesn't know the man, and that's the better story.
10/09/08
Too much synthetic spotlessness to score a real and grimy touchdown of credibility and inspiration.
10/09/08
The pacing is off, which makes Express feel longer than it actually is.
10/09/08
A smartly updated old-fashioned espionage thriller.
10/09/08
The Express eventually reaches its triumph-of-the-human-spirit climax, but it yanks too hard on the heart strings during the long journey there.
10/09/08
The Express finesses a cinematic hat trick: It's entertaining, deeply moving and genuinely important.
10/09/08
Just about good enough to be the 40th best episode of Friday Night Lights. Which has aired 39 episodes.
10/09/08
A Cliffs' Notes version of Ernie Davis' life that turns everything he worked for into a Hallmark card.
10/09/08
[Fleder's] directorial bungling puts a terrible burden on the appealing cast.
10/09/08
The Express raises the following rhetorical question: Was Davis' life really that by-the-numbers bland or have the filmmakers airbrushed out all the prickly, complicated details?
10/09/08
Won't make you feel much, because you've already felt it the same way, in the same manner from other stories that got there first with more charisma.
10/09/08
A sturdy sports flick about the legendary Ernie Davis who was the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy.
10/09/08
Express nails the pulse of Davis's life just right, incorporating his confidence, leadership, and exasperation into an engrossing, if not exactly groundbreaking, feature film.
10/09/08
The Express is involving and inspiring in the way a good movie about sports almost always is.
10/09/08
Top CriticThe Express tells the true story of college-football star Ernie Davis. It's such a naturally compelling tale that one wonders why it hasn't been filmed before.
10/09/08
An uplifting--and poignant--tale...but it's told...in very broad strokes that make their point as obviously as any TV movie would.
10/09/08
Accomplishes what it sets out to do. It chronicles Davis' trials and triumphs well enough. But still, it leaves you wondering what was going on inside the helmet.
10/09/08
[Ernie Davis'] story is one all young athletes (and some hotdogging, grandstanding professional players) can learn from.
10/08/08
Latest News for The Express
January 17, 2009:
If the best thing said about a football movie, oddly enough, is that it can be entertaining for anyone who could care less about sports, then this is a solid touchdown. Skeptical couch potatoes take heart, a knowledge of the game is rarely required. 
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January 13, 2009:
If the best thing said about a football movie, oddly enough, is that it can be entertaining for anyone who could care less about sports, then this is a solid touchdown. Skeptical couch potatoes take heart, a knowledge of the game is rarely required.
More...
October 11, 2008:
A fine addition to the recent genre of socially-conscious sports flicks highlighting individual feats for the collective meaning of those historic triumphs to the masses of black folks in search of civil rights.
More...
October 09, 2008:
Critics Consensus: Express Scores, Body of Lies Falls Flat
This week at the movies, we've got suspicious spies (Body of Lies, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe), gridiron greats (The Express, starring Rob Brown and Dennis... More...
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