Forever Strong (Ryan Little, 2008): USA

Reviewed by Richard Feilden.  Viewed on DVD

I remember rugby.  It was one of the attempts at ‘character building’ that I was forced to endure between the ages of 11 and 16.  Being that it is a winter sport, and being that I was in England, that meant an hour a week of flailing in the rain at the oval ball, whilst trying to avoid being buried up to my ears in sludge by boys who weighed twice as much as me.  Ah, happy days!  So, does Forever Strong match my memories?   Well, yes and no.  The weather is a little dryer in Utah so, for the most part, there is lot less wading through mud, but the apparent chaos and the violence inherent to the game (no shoulder-pads and crash helmets here, American Football fans) have translated well.  Unfortunately, the film that carries the on the field scenes is as clichéd as it gets.

Rick Penning (Sean Farris, who seems to have adopted Christian Slater as his voice coach, judging by the affectations here) is our rebel without a clue.  Battling against his disillusioned father, rugby coach Richard Penning (Neal McDonough) and a self-destructive drinking problem, he winds up injuring his girlfriend and heading to juvenile detention on his second DUI.  There, by way of machinations unmentioned (and unlikely), he ends up playing for the legendary US high school rugby team, Highland.  Highland’s coach, played by Gary Cole, is based upon the school’s real coach, Larry Gelwix.  He battles to turn reckless boys into decent young men, as well as a winning rugby team, if he can squeeze that in along the way.  And so the battle is on for young Ricky’s soul.

For a sports movie to work, the on-the-field action has to look the part, and here it does.  The camera spends enough time hanging back that, even without a working knowledge of the sport (and the film has no intention of teaching you that, something which would have cost time and added little), you should be able to get a grip on what is going on.  It also devotes sufficient moments to diving deep into the scrum, giving you an idea of what it might be like to be there.  Michael Bay may be under the impression that to make you feel part of the action it is necessary to cut fifteen times a second, and that ‘intense’ means ‘not being able to work out what the hell is going on,’ but he could learn something from this low budget picture.

Less impressive is the story itself.  Apparently culled from years of coaching and distilled down to a single season, it contains every sporting stereotype that you could imagine.  We have it all, from fractious relationships that turn to friendships, old, harmful bonds severed, abuse problems overcome, teams coming together, close rivals who happen to end up in the finals against each other, and on it goes.  The film doesn’t miss a single play.  Fortunately, it is executed well enough that, if you can cringe your way through worst of it, the next scene should drag you back in.  This is ‘exactly what it says on the tin’ film making.Nothing special, little that is terrible

Extras on the disc are pretty comprehensive; from pearls of wisdom from the real Larry Gelwix, to a ‘making of’ with cast interviews and a brief explanation of the Haka (the Maori ritual performed before some of the games), they are all fairly engaging.