{"id":4551,"date":"2009-05-25T15:33:45","date_gmt":"2009-05-25T23:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4551"},"modified":"2009-05-26T19:11:51","modified_gmt":"2009-05-27T03:11:51","slug":"forever-strong-ryan-little-2008-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4551","title":{"rendered":"Forever Strong (Ryan Little, 2008): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed on DVD<\/p>\n

\"foreverstrong\"I remember rugby. \u00a0It was one of the attempts at \u2018character building\u2019 that I was forced to endure between the ages of 11 and 16. \u00a0Being 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. \u00a0Ah, happy days! \u00a0So, does Forever Strong<\/em><\/a> match my memories? \u00a0 Well, yes and no. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0Unfortunately, the film that carries the on the field scenes is as clich\u00e9d as it gets.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0Battling 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. \u00a0There, by way of machinations unmentioned (and unlikely), he ends up playing for the legendary US high school rugby team, Highland. \u00a0Highland\u2019s coach, played by Gary Cole, is based upon the school\u2019s real coach, Larry Gelwix. \u00a0He 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. \u00a0And so the battle is on for young Ricky\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n

For a sports movie to work, the on-the-field action has to look the part, and here it does. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0It also devotes sufficient moments to diving deep into the scrum, giving you an idea of what it might be like to be there. \u00a0Michael 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 \u2018intense\u2019 means \u2018not being able to work out what the hell is going on,’ but he could learn something from this low budget picture.<\/p>\n

Less impressive is the story itself. \u00a0Apparently culled from years of coaching and distilled down to a single season, it contains every sporting stereotype that you could imagine. \u00a0We 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. \u00a0The film doesn\u2019t miss a single play. \u00a0Fortunately, it is executed well enough that, if you can cringe your way through worst of it, the next scene should drag you back in. \u00a0This is \u2018exactly what it says on the tin\u2019 film making.Nothing special, little that is terrible<\/p>\n

Extras on the disc are pretty comprehensive; from pearls of wisdom from the real Larry Gelwix, to a \u2018making of\u2019 with cast interviews and a brief explanation of the Haka (the Maori ritual performed before some of the games), they are all fairly engaging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed on DVD I remember rugby. \u00a0It was one of the attempts at \u2018character building\u2019 that I was forced to endure between the ages of 11 and 16. \u00a0Being that it is a winter sport, and being that I was in England, that meant an hour a week of flailing in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}