Reviews, Interviews , News, Commentaries, My Top 5 Movies, Best-Of Lists, Filmmakers of Faith, Film ForumThe 5th Quarter
The Abbate family of Marietta, Georgia lost 15-year-old Luke in a tragic car accident on his way home from school in 2006. Later that year, older brother Jon Abbate, a junior at Wake Forest University and a defensive linebacker for the Demon Deacons, received permission to change his jersey number to 5, the same number worn by Luke in high school field hockey. The Abbates also honored Luke by sparking a season-long tradition of holding up five fingers during the 4th quarter of every football game, thus renaming it the 5th quarter. These actions helped inspire the Deacons to their most successful season in the school's history, going 11-2 and winning the conference championship.
Sure sounds like a recipe for a heartfelt and inspiring sports film. If only The 5th Quarter did the story justice.
Andie MacDowell and Aidan Quinn as the Abbate parents
First, it's hard to call this a football movie when 30 minutes pass before a football-related scene; the first game doesn't even happen until the film's midpoint. Granted, Luke died several months before football season, but there's probably less than a half hour of total game footage in The 5th Quarter. And footage is the right word; real shots from the games are intercut with new scenes of the actors cheering on the sidelines and in the stands. The results are choppy montages of football with no real semblance of what's happening in the game aside from the occasional touchdown and blocked kick.
More importantly, The 5th Quarter dodges the main point: How did Jon Abbate and his family find hope in tragedy to inspire the Deacons to win football games? Did the team play better in the 4th (5th) quarter because of the outstretched hands of fans? Was their successful run due to what happened on the field or behind the scenes?
It's never made clear. In the film, Coach Grobe (Michael Harding) purposefully avoids answering such questions when talking to the press. Later, before the final game, he refers to the team helping each other through personal problems during the season. That could have made this movie more meaningful, showing how personal tragedy and the inspiration of one can teach a team to bear one another's burdens. But the teammates are rarely on screen, appearing only to deliver clichÉd blather about winning instead of losing.
Ryan Merriman as Jon Abbate
The focus instead is on the Abbate family coping with the loss of their son. This also might have yielded an emotional yet effective film, demonstrating how we all deal with grief and find comfort in different ways. Instead it's a series of drippy vignettes that don't always add up to a cohesive storyline. Potential developments go unresolved, scenes often end without follow-up, and most all the characters are poorly introduced.
For example, the Abbates seem to have a handicapped daughter, shown throughout the movie. It's never made entirely clear what her relationship is, though, plus she's rarely referred to by name and only offers a few lines of dialogue (still enough to beg the question, "Who is that?"). In one of the best scenes, Jon has a touching heart-to-heart with an assistant coach who had also experienced tragedy, but despite their connection and common ground, the coach never appears again in the movie.
La complejidad hispana: Todo cambió en el 2012
The Latest in Movie News, May 20, 2013
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Darren Pillow
I feel sad about the tragedy in the movie. but i was disappointed that there was not enough inspiration Of God in this movie, the drinking,cursing and absence of God was sad. When you go through rough times in your life it's good to turn to God.That was not clear in this movie.It was not a spiritual movie as it was mentioned to be. Wake Forest DEMON DEACONS instead of BAPTIST DEACONS,REALLY!!!!!!!!!That's sad
PATTY STUDDARD
I could hardly sit through the opening. I to had experienced the same. The scene was exactly. The phone call. The driving to scene. The helicoptors. Me banging on the ambulance door. The totaled Ford Explorer. The 4 baseball friends who survived the 5 rollover and ejecting my son on the 3rd roll on Halloween night after leaving a church function. I continue to thank God everyday for letting me giving my son back to me.
Summer
It's easy to feel the gut-wrenching loss this family suffered, especially in certain scenes, like when the family accompanies Luke's gurney as he's wheeled to the OR to donate his organs and the funeral scene when the father insists on carrying Luke's casket out of the church himself, sobbing as he pushes it down the aisle. I literally sobbed at the imagery of a family having to DO these things. However, I was appalled, at the inclusion of the scene with the well-meaning neighbor. The grieving mother may indeed have responded as the film depicts, but all it accomplished was to imply Luke's mom never liked this neighbor to begin with and, finally having a good excuse to rail at her, she DID. I also feel sympathy for the boy who caused the wreck since the movie implied neither forgiveness nor redemption of any kind. I'm grateful for the Edgar Guest poem, voiced-over a scene with the mother. It provided the message the movie failed to convey, that God CAN use grief and loss for good.