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Omar Benson Miller as Ernie's friend Jack Buckley

Ernie does work harder than the others. He's like a deer on the field, dodging, twisting, leaping between, around and over opposing players. Actor Brown, who played football at Amherst College, is persuasive in the role, and stellar cinematography and sharp editing convey the drama of the action even to a sports outsider like myself while maintaining a fan-pleasing authenticity. (I know this because I brought my sports-loving father to the screening. As a sports non-fan, my definition of a good sports film is one that my dad and I both enjoy. The Express has the goods.)

Ernie is one of three black players for the Orangemen, along with Jack Buckley (a very funny Omar Benson Miller), his best friend on the team. Jim warns Ernie that Syracuse won't be an easy place for him, and naturally Ernie faces antagonism on his own team as well as on campus. He even clashes with Schwartzwalder, who recognizes his strengths but has a pragmatic attitude about the world they live in. Quaid's performance is one of the film's highlights; I don't know how many movie coaches could deliver what Jack later calls "the white-girl speech" without coming off like a Hollywood heavy, but Quaid manages to combine complicity with bigotry and a measure of sympathy in a gratifyingly nuanced way.

Quaid's performance aside, if The Express has a flaw, it may be pushing its salutary depiction of race and racism just a bit too far. Among other things, it might have been nice to see at least an occasional incidental white character who didn't evince some sort of racism.

Ernie on the run

From what I've read about Davis's life, his actual relationship with Schwartzwalder may have been more congenial than the film suggests. Another fictionalization concerns an important game against West Virginia University that really occurred in Syracuse, but in the film is moved to Morgantown to provide an ugly scene of virulently racist West Virginia fans throwing rubbish at the integrated Orangemen, while the WV Mountaineers take brutal cheap shots at Davis and the referees make one skewed call after another. (West Virginia fans have cried foul at this license, though it seems to be true the Mountaineers weren't integrated at that time.)

Certainly the resistance Ernie faces at the Cotton Bowl in Texas, including not being allowed to stay at the hotel with his teammates—or the country club where the award was given—is factual. (Ernie's teammates' reaction to the latter snub is among the film's most gratifying moments.)

Nicole Behaire is appealing but underused as love interest Sarah Ward, who has a couple of nice scenes but isn't in the movie enough to make it entirely clear, in a mildly sensual bedroom scene late in the film, whether they're married or just lovers (apparently the latter is the case). In a PG film, this moment seems somewhat out of place, though it would have been less so if they were married.

After his college days, Davis signed with Cleveland along with his hero Jim Brown, but they never had a chance to play together, as the film shows. It makes for a more poignant, less traditionally triumphant ending than most sports movies. Whether in spite of this or because of it, The Express ranks among the most moving and memorable films of its kind.

Talk About It

1. What early experiences helped shape Ernie's direction in life? What did Ernie bring to those experiences that someone else might not have? Did Ernie become a great football player more because of who he was or because of things that happened to him?
2. More than once, Ernie and Schwartzwalder clash over whether it is prudent for Ernie to continue to play in the face of opposition. What is at stake from Ernie's point of view? From Schwartzwalder's? How do you decide whether a matter of principle is worth the potential risk?

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