The Junction Boys (2002)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Mike Robe, based on the book by Jim Dent
Directed by Mike Robe
Starring Tom Berenger, Fletcher Humphrys, Ryan Kwanten, Bernard Curry, Nick Tate

Features:

• SportsCentury Featurette on Paul "Bear" Bryant
  
• Outside the Lines: The Real Junction Boys featurette
  

Released by: ESPN Original Entertainment
Rating: TV-14
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format

My Advice: Own it if you are an Alabama Football fan

Paul "Bear" Bryant (Berenger) has just been hired as the new head football coach at Texas A&M College. This is well before his glory days at the University of Alabama. In fact, he is just beginning to make a name for himself in college football. Anyway, when The Bear arrives in College Station, Texas, he discovers that there are lot of the players on the team who are there because their fathers want them there, but they don't really care about playing football at all. Football is just a way for them to score chicks during the school year. Unsatisfied with the shape that his newly inherited team is in, he decides to move his summer football camp secretly to a little place called Junction, Texas so that he can stay out of the invasive eye (and hand) of the college's alumni legacy machine that had dominated the football program for years. So, he heads out to the 120 degree heat of Junction with two bus loads full of slacker boys determined to turn them into a football team. What he didn't count on, though, was the long lasting impact that sweltering summer would have on both the boys and himself.

Make no mistake, this movie serves two purposes: 1) the subject matter is the perfect vehicle to get ESPN into the television movie making business, and 2) it provides Tom Berenger with a role that he was nearly born to play. Bear Bryant is not an easy character to bring to life. There are essentially two types of people who knew him, those that loved him and those that hated him. Both sides tend to glorify and mythologize his existence way beyond anything that resembles humanity. With that having been said, Berenger did a great job of playing at the idea that this was the legend before he was a legend. The rest of the cast seemed to know their place and played it fairly well. When the script called for the supporting cast to make him look like a hard-ass, they sort of challenged him, but they got out of the way pretty quickly, and when the script called for them to make him look like the caring father figure, proud smiles and lumps in the throat were a dime a dozen.

The DVD is a decent presentation. There are essentially two bits of bonus material to the disc. The first of which is quite possibly the best documentary about Bear Bryant that I have ever seen. There is the perfect blend of interviews and biography that gives a detailed snapshot of the legend. The interviews are with the men who played football under Bryant at Texas A&M and at the University of Alabama. Oh yeah, and in the interviews both sides of the Bryant legend are equally represented. It neither glorifies him or attempts to destroy him; it simply represents the facts and personal opinions about the man.

The other documentary focuses on where The Junction Boys wound up later in their lives...and that's really about all it boils down to. This is nicely done, but to be honest, after about ten minutes into it, you get the idea that they are all doing just fine for themselves and almost all of them claim that, even though it was the hardest summer they've ever spent, they will never forget the lessons that they learned there. All in all, it's a nice addition to the disc.

So, if your blood runs Crimson, you will probably want to pick this one up as a purchase. Even though the movie is about Bryant's first days at A&M, this may be the only movie about Bear Bryant that Crimson Tide fans will get for a long time. Everyone else should at least rent it.