There?s a moment in the recent movie “Invincible” when the main character, Vince Papale, is driving through the streets of Philadelphia and a ball bounces in front of his car. Papale stops. A little boy, wearing a tattered shirt, runs out and picks it up and runs back to his friends for their game of football.
Papale looks at the back of the boy?s shirt, and the No. 83 is there, pieced together by blocks of masking tape. It?s the number Papale wears as a member of his hometown Philadelphia Eagles as a special teams player and receiver.
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Papale sits in his car, stunned, unable to move. A couple of weeks prior, he was tending bar in a localjoint and now had made the Eagles at age 30.
In the late 1970s, Dick Vermeil had an open tryout to attempt to spark the imagination of the city of Philadelphia after years of losing. Papale, in real life, had actually played two years in the World Football League before getting a tryout, unlike what was portrayed in the movie.
Poetic license aside, I flashed back during that scene to my own childhood in the D.C. suburbs as a Redskins fan. (Don?t worry, Baltimore ? there is a point to all this nostalgia.)
I would play football with my friends on the narrow one-way street of my townhouse-laden neighborhood. Every day, I would imagine I was someone new. Sometimes, I?d play receiver and think I was Art Monk. The resemblance is uncanny, isn?t it? During the ?80s, in early August, I wanted to be Babe Laufenburg, who was a preseason everyman of a quarterback. Whenever the third-stringers seemed down and out, Laufenburg would find a way to get them in the end zone.
“Invincible” tries to show the burden a town can place on the underdog. It?s like in the movie “Airplane!” where Leslie Nielsen enters the plummeting plane?s cockpit every 10 minutes and says to the pilot: “I just want to tell you both good luck; we?re all counting on you.”
Maybe the real Papale enjoyed his time as an Eagle and town folk hero, but in this movie, he seems sullen. He clearly likes playing pickup football with his friends, where they stage ridiculous games in between a gauntlet of cars that serve as sidelines. Not a single person who plays in the game seems to use their hands for a tackle.
Each tackle is delivered like Randy “Macho Man” Savage coming off the top ropes, dropping the elbow in cartoon-like fashion.
The film so desperately wants to be “Rudy.” Watching that 1993 film, you bought that he desperately wanted to play for Notre Dame. You felt bad that the little asthmatic kid from “The Goonies” wasgetting his butt handed to him. By the time he plays for Notre Dame in the final game, tears are streaming down your face.
“Invincible” never reaches those heights, but few films do. The one thing it reminds us gradually aging guys is this: Our playground memories are never far away.
Top 10 sports movies
» Field of Dreams: “Hey … Dad, wanna have a catch?” I admit it: I get a good man cry out of this flick. No movie destroys me like this one. Watch it and try not to fall in love with baseball all over again.
» Hoop Dreams: For many, like high school stars William Gates and Arthur Agee, the game is a way out of their harsh surroundings. This documentary is unflinching.
» Miracle: I?m not a hockey guy. So, why do I have this movie so high? It feels real. Kurt Russell as Team USA coach Herb Brooks is perfect, and the action is as good as sports movies get.
» Friday Night Lights: This movie, based on the non-fiction book, just gets better and better with age. It paints a picture of a Texas town that treats the local high school football players like professionals. Realistic action, nice performances and genuine emotion separate this from the typically mundane football flick.
» Million Dollar Baby: Clint Eastwood?s boxing lessons in the movie are truly great. Listen to him as he trains his female student. He changes the way she approaches life, and vice versa.
» Rudy: Some people balk at the sentimentality of this Notre Dame football recruitment video. Still, it?s a classic that speaks to our love of sports and the lengths we will go to achieve our dreams.
» Remember The Titans: You might have been lost when they started singing Motown on the field, but its message of tolerance and teamwork works.
» Major League: Sure, the sequel has Camden Yards, but this one was truly hilarious, and the action wasn?t badeither. A good guilty pleasure.
» Hoosiers: I already know I?ve ticked off people with the glaring absence of Rocky I, II, III and IV, as well as Raging Bull. So, here?s the one everyone loves, right?
» Cinderella Man: Each time Jim Braddock reels against the ropes, almost ready to hit the canvas, he flashes to thoughts of his family. He stays on his feet and has us cheering him along.
Matt Palmer is a staff writer for the Baltimore Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
