The high school level of athletics might be one of the few remaining places where one could find purity in sports. Professional sports are rife with stories of cheating, of individualism and commercialism. College – at least in the major sports – is no better; while only the smallest of percentages will play professionally, the sports there might be less pure than their professional counterparts. So there is the international level – an area that has been largely ignored in cinema history – and high schools.

From Hoosiers to Remember the Titans, the history of the high school sports film focus on that purity. Even darker stories like Friday Night Lights and – to an extent – Varsity Blues generally include a nice moral lesson; for every Charlie Tweeter there is a Billy Bob, for every Basketball Diaries there is a Coach Carter. When the Game Stands Tall lives in the shadow of the inspirational stories; it very much wants to be Titans. Unfortunately director Thomas Carter and screenwriter Scott Marshall Smith spend most of the film trying to figure out what story they want to tell.

When the Game Stands Tall follows the De La Salle High School Titans of the 151-0 winning streak fame. Jim Caviezel plays famed coach Bob Ladouceur, a man who is either an excellent shaper-of-men or average-family-man, depending on what story the flick is trying to tell at any given time. Laura Dern – who was phenomenal in an oddly similar role in The Fault In Our Stars earlier this year – almost seems to be in a different movie because of that narrative dissonance.

The movie shines on the field: the team deals with different kinds of loss: the death of a former player on the cusp of college greatness, Ladouceur’s heart attack, the graduation of entirely too much talent and the resulting end of their historic winning streak. Caviezel portrays the coach as a quiet leader who – in what seems to be a direct quote from the subject – expects not perfection, but perfect effort. That steely idealism is what shapes his team into winners, but more importantly his players into men (cue Afterschool Special outro now).

But no sports movie can live entirely on the field or court, and When the Game Stands Tall struggles mightily in telling that story – or eighty-five stories as it might be. The film takes a wild detour in the first act telling the story of two former players making the transition to adulthood. When one tragically dies, the movie then jettisons the whole arc after the funeral (save a quick appearance near the end). This is included in the movie because it is a part of what that team faced, but the flick never truly establishes its relevance in the narrative arc other than its history.

Likewise was the glimpse into the Ladouceur’s family life. The story included elements of the coach being an absentee father, but the script ignores the age-old movie tenant of “Show, Don’t Tell” and just expects us to believe this titan of a mentor just happens to be a not-good-enough father because Dern’s character mentions it in passing once or twice. We are never given any reason to believe it – hell, Dern doesn’t even seem to believe it. The only thing approaching proof is the relationship between father and son, who happens to be a player on the team. There were some awkward moments between the two, but the scenes failed to clarify their relationship as much as just confuse it.

When the Game Stands Tall wants so desperately to be the kind of movie Remember The Titans is; the shame is how the source material could easily provide for that type of story. Instead it is one good story mired in five or six bad ones. Had the creative team been more judicious in deciding what aspects of the team’s season it wanted to tell, it would have been a considerably more sound – and thus enjoyable – flick.

CliqueClack has partnered with Screen Gems to offer readers in New York City an opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new sports drama When the Game Stands Tall starring Jim Caviezel, Michael Chiklis, Alexander Ludwig, Clancy Brown and Laura Dern.

Inspired by a true story, When the Game Stands Tall tells the remarkable journey of legendary football coach Bob Ladouceur (Caviezel), who took the De La Salle High School Spartans from obscurity to a 151-game winning streak that shattered all records for any American sport.

The screenings will take place Tuesday, August 19, 7:00 PM at City Cinemas 1,2,3, 1001 3rd Ave, New York, NY.

A limited number of passes are available through the Sony Screenings website. To be get your free passes, you must click on the link below:

• Sony Screenings – When the Game Stands Tall

Check your calendar before downloading. If you have no intention of using the passes, please don’t download. If the studios see that passes we are given to award to our readers are not being used, they will not want to offer us passes for future screenings. Please be considerate!

Passes are available on a first come, first served basis. CliqueClack is not responsible for distributing passes for this screening; comments will not be accepted.

Please note that passes do not guarantee seats at the screening. Seating is first come, first served so plan to arrive early. CliqueClack has no control over the total number of passes distributed, and is not responsible for seating arrangements at the theater.

Have a look at the trailer below and go get your passes. When the Game Stands Tall opens in theaters August 22.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT0aE4iAnJo