The Express

The sports-movie template is capable of absorbing any story and delivering the same uplift. Take Ernie Davis (Rob Brown), the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy, in 1961. Playing at a time when most college-football teams were lily-white, Davis (Rob Brown) faces open racism from opponents and subtler racism from his coach (Dennis Quaid). It’s a great story, but the movie has to bend a few things, not least when, fixated on the uplift, director Gary Fleder has to rush Davis’s ending – he died of leukemia before playing in the NFL.