Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Not really a football movie or a military one, ESPN's made-for-TV "Codebreakers" is really a compelling and powerful coming-of-age film about a group of cadets at West Point, based upon a true story that happened in 1951.
Before the dominance of the NFL among the public, it was college football that received the most attention, and the highest ranked team was usually Army, under Coach Earl "Red" Blaik. With a demanding practice schedule interfering with their studies, and Coach Blaik "do whatever it takes to win" attitude, many of the players found it easy to justify passing answers to exams to each other, even though it was clearly a violation of West Point's revered honor code. This had been going on for many years, supposedly unknown by those in charge, and even Blaik's own son, a junior and quarterback on the team, was a participant.
One football player offered to get answers for an exam for his (non-player) roommate, who went to the commander and blew the whistle on the scandal, only to get shunned by his classmates as well as his own father for his apparent disloyalty to his classmates. The resulting investigation resulted in charges brought against 90 cadets, and threatened the existence of the football program at West Point.
Most of the film deals with the interactions between the cadets involved in the cheating, essentially pointing out that loyalty to the school's honor code in this instance seemed to conflict directly to loyalty to one's fellow cadets and the football team, which many of the players saw as a surrogate family under Coach Blaik. It perfectly captures the spirit of its time, and highlights some commendable performances from its young cast, which include Zachary Bryan ("Home Improvement"), Corey Sevier ("North Shore") abd Jeff Roop. Veteran character actor Scott Glenn turns in a subtle but powerful performance as Coach Blaik.
DVD extras include deleted scenes, documentaries about the Army football team, and an interesting "Making of.." featurette that includes how they "assembled" a huge Army/Navy football game out of pieces shot in different locations.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Code Breakers (2005)
CODE BREAKERS - DVD Movie
Get 59% OFF
No comments:
Post a Comment