The Blind Side

Director: John Lee Hancock
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron and Kathy Bates
Releasing in cinemas: 25 February 2010
Rated: PG

Blinded by the light

Everybody knows that, in general, sports movies aren't really about sports. The sport is usually simply a device to explore (or even a metaphor for) the characters' emotional landscape. The genre has produced some great films - The Natural and Raging Bull spring to mind - but just as many (if not more) mediocre efforts. Whether you can actually categorise The Blind Side as a sports movie is debatable, but even if you did, it's hard to see that this film adds much to the canon.

The problem with John Lee Hancock's film is that it has far too little sport and far too much schmaltz to be really engaging. The story's theme about overcoming adversity and the winning of hearts and minds has been done before and with considerably more depth and intelligence than this film can muster.

That said though, the film is notable for the central performance of Sandra Bullock, who probably deserves Oscar favouritism based on her impressive work here. It also carries an important message about tolerance and the importance of education that perhaps doesn't come through all that clearly by the end.

Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, a white-bread, middle class Republican from Memphis, Tennessee. She is however a big fan of American football and a keen observer of its nuances. On the other side of the tracks (literally and figuratively), down-on-his-luck homeless teenager Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) is given a chance by Coach Cotton (Ray McKinnon) the football coach at the local Christian school that Leigh Anne's children attend. When Leigh Anne's young son S.J. (Jae Head) befriends Michael, she comes to realise just how deprived his existence really is. She, like the coach, sees that he has the potential to play football; but before he can play for the school, he needs to get his grades up. Welcomed into the family, Michael soon settles down; but his first football try-out is a near disaster - but Leigh Anne soon discovers the key to unlocking his potential.

The film is based on the true experiences of NFL professional lineman Michael Oher. The degree to which everything in the movie is "true" as such is possibly diluted by the fact that the film is from a screenplay by the director from Michael Lewis's book about Oher. I'm sure that the key events are true-to-life, but I suspect there has been some embellishment in the telling of the tale.

John Lee Hancock (there's a good ole boy name, if ever there was one) previously directed another real-life sports film in The Rookie; about an aging baseball pitcher who comes back for a shot at the big time. This film really doesn't stray far from the formula he established in that film - a setting of sports overlaid with a ton of treacly sentimentality.

The sports sequences are well-handled, capturing both the rough-and-tumble of American football and its tactical subtleties (after all, this is a sport described as "chess with violence"). It certainly makes it easier for an outsider not familiar with the intricacies of the sport. Equally, the family dynamic is deftly portrayed (perhaps a little too deftly at times). What isn't so subtle though is the sometimes clunky dialogue (when Leigh Anne is told she's changing Michael's life, she replies "No, he's changing mine"), the predictable - if nonetheless inspiring - ending and the over-wrought sentimentality of the piece.

Sandra Bullock however rises above all the film's failings in a wonderful performance. Although the script doesn't give her character much back-story, there's not a single moment when she's not utterly convincing. Aaron Quinton is also impressive as Michael, while country music singer Tim McGraw is rather surprisingly understated as Leigh Anne's husband. Young Jae Head steals plenty of scenes as S.J.; and Kathy Bates has a small but significant cameo as a tutor.

Despite appreciating many of the qualities of The Blind Side, the whole thing left me rather cold. While Bullock's performance is entirely credible, the schmaltzier elements of the movie were grating to say the least. That is to take nothing away from Michael Oher's story - I just wish that story had been told better.

David Edwards