Rudy

In honor of St. Patrick's Day I thought I would do a review of one of the classic sports movies out there. Now some of you may be saying, wait a minute how is Rudy a St. Patrick's Day movie. Well, in trying to think of a movie for St. Patrick's Day, I had to think Irish. When thinking Irish I thought they like to get drunk then fight, so that led naturally to Fighin' Irish. Which leads to Notre Dame and the first movie I thought about was Rudy.

Now I will admit upfront that I may be a little biased in my review of this movie because it is not only one of my favorite sports movies, but it related to me as I grew up. I was always one of the shorter kids growing up so like Rudy in sports I had to make up for my lack of height with my heart and hustle. Rudy grew up in a small steel mill town and is a huge Notre Dame football fan growing up and dreamt to play for Notre Dame. Rudy lacked the size, speed and general athletic ability that most college football players posses, but he worked to make up for this lack of ability with his drive and heart.

As director David Anspaugh, delivers a masterful job at telling this story that is based on a true story. A tough aspect in directing a football movie is that of the on the field action and depicting it in a way that allows the viewer to see the scenes like they are watching a regular football game and not just quick cut scenes of football action. Anspaugh though is able to successfully contradict the action of the football scenes with the differences of the touching moments and more storyline based scenes in the movie.

Sean Astin gives a powerful performance as Rudy and makes you truly feel the heart and emotion he has to play for Notre Dame football. Astin plays Rudy, so boldly that you truly believe that he is an avid fan of Notre Dame, and that playing for the Irish is the most important dream to go after. In the movie this is one of the first movies that helped launch the career of Jon Favreau. Favreau gives a great performance as D-Bob, the awkward student teacher, that looks to Rudy to help him with finding a girlfriend in exchange for to help Rudy with his studies.

Jason Miller, plays Ara Parseghian head coach of Notre Dame and antagonist in the movie. He is portrayed as the villain who does not want to give Rudy the opportunity to dress for one game like the previous coach had promised Rudy at the end of the previous season. This was one of the liberties in the story that they took in telling the story. Coach Parseghian in actuality was the one who suggested Rudy dress for the final home game of the 1975 season. One fact that most may not remember is that Joe Montana and Rudy were actually teammates during the 1974 and 1975 seasons.

The greatest aspect of this movie is the score. Jerry Goldsmith has given a score for this movie that immediately takes a listener back to the movie even if they have not seen the movie in years. In a football movie with football scenes the score is a very important aspect to tie the football scenes into the rest of the movie. It needs to tie it in because most of the time the football action sequences do not have the dialogue, but the score allows it not to be dead sound time.

This movie is one of the best sports movies because of the great acting from not only the stars but the supporting cast as well. I give this movie four buckets of popcorn out of five. I would highly recommend renting this movie if you have never seen Rudy or have not seen it in a while. This movie is definitely one that any guy who has a dvd collection it needs to be included.

-The Movie Man-