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My All American Blu-ray Review

Angelo Pizzo has
made a career out of writing screenplays based on true life inspirational
sports stories, and in the past they have all been directed by his former
fraternity brother from his undergraduate days at IndianaUniversity.
But whether it is the fault of a diminishing ability to write an inspirational
screenplay or his shortcomings as a first time director, My All American comes nowhere near the level of Hoosiers, Rudy, or even The Game of
Their Lives. Considering it has been 10 years since his last screenplay
made it to the screen, I’m afraid Pizzo may have returned to the well one time
too many, with this latest endeavor feeling like a bad copy of his past
successes.

Even the choice
of subject often feels derivative of Rudy,
focusing on an underdog deemed too small to play football. This is not fair to
the actual Freddie Steinmark, a real person who has been reduced a bundle of
sports film clichés and shoehorned faith-based messages. Played by Finn
Wittrock, Freddie Steinmark’s career in football is shown from childhood
through his college days coached by Darrell Royal (Aaron Eckhart) in Texas. The entire
narrative is told by Royal in a pathetically amateur bookend sequence where he
is being interviewed about his career late in his life, complete with Eckhart
wearing distractingly bad old age make-up. Not only are the technical elements
of this scene frustratingly inadequate and the acting by the interviewer among
the worst in the film, but the entire logic of the sequence is flawed. How can
the coach from Steinmark’s college career in Texas
be the narrator to the first third of his story taking place in Colorado?

There are many
of these dumbfounding moments of faulty film logic within My All American, showing Pizzo’s inexperience as a director and
failure as the screenwriter in one fell swoop. This isn’t to say that there is
nothing good about My All American,
but most of the successful elements either feel borrowed from better films or
simply overwhelmed by the elements which don’t work. It doesn’t help that many
moments of Christian ideology seem forced into the narrative. While I have no
problem with issues of religion and faith in film, here it only adds more
distraction to an already unfocused screenplay.

On top of his
motivated climb through the ranks in the world of unprofessional football, My All American gives us a
picture-perfect romance with his high school sweetheart (Sarah Bolger), not to
mention a flawless relationship with his parents (Michael Reilly Burke, Robin
Tunney). While it is at first refreshing (if not a bit hokey) to see a biopic
where the character doesn’t have to overcome some dark past, it only
foreshadows the difficulties that lie in Steinmark’s future. With all of the
events and characters off of the field, it is surprising that the film has time
to show much of his actual football career.

The Blu-ray
release of My All American comes with
a DVD and Digital HD copy of the film. There are also two special features in
the form of generic featurettes. One is about the real-life inspiration for the
movie, while the other is just promotional behind-the-scenes look at the movie.
Neither have much more depth than the film itself.