The Blind Side

There is nothing like a good inspirational sports story, in my mind. I love the tears that come with them and I even love most of the cliches that exist within them. Sports have always been my first love and to see movies that show the good parts of sports makes me happy. This particular story first came to me about 3 years ago when I was listening to Jim Rome every day. He interviewed a man named Michael Lewis who had written a book called The Blind Side. I was pretty taken by the story and read the book and loved it and was pretty excited to see a movie made about it. I was unsure of what to make of Sandra Bullock as the star and I did not like how dumb they made Michael look in the trailer, but I was still pretty excited for it. It took me a few weeks to get to the theater because my dad and I had plans to see it together, but I finally got to see it and I finally got the tears that came with it.

Michael Oher(Quinton Aaron), is more commonly known as Big Mike. He is a homeless huge black teenager who has just started at a private christian high school because the coach of the football team sees his size and thinks he would be perfect. However, Big Mike's grades are not good and it seems that no one really believes in him. He has two shirts, and to wash them he has to throw them in someone else's laundry when that person is not looking. He sleeps in the gym because it is warm and he has very limited reading skills.

Leigh Anne Tuohy(Bullock) is a strong willed, sharp tongued woman with a wonderful family, great house and seemingly perfect life. She is a good Christian woman and a card carrying member of the NRA. One night, fate brings these two people together. On the way home from Tuhoy's son's school play, her family crosses paths with Big Mike walking in the cold in just a shirt and shorts on his way to the school gym to sleep. Tuohy thinks about it for about 30 seconds and decides he is going to come with her family, at least for the night. One night turns into the Thanksgiving holiday and eventually into Michael getting his own room in their house.

Michael has a past that he never speaks of, but as we catch glimpses of it, we can see it is not good. As Michael has people who finally believe in him, he gets his grades up enough to play football, but he is too gentle. He does not understand the game until Tuohy figures out how to get through to him. It turns out he is an amazing left tackle, or "Blind Side" tackle. Sure enough, colleges start calling, but Michael does not have the grades for it, so Tuohy hires a tutor and well, we all know how these stories end.

I have a few problems with the movie, but the feeling the movie left me with, kind of negates all of those bad feelings. The movie is earnest in its desire to show how good people can be and how sometimes all people need is someone to believe in them. The movie is unabashed in how it drenches you with warmth and love and kindness and for that I applaud it. Granted the movie kind of paints too broad a stroke in terms of Michael's past and we barely get to see the problems in his life, and there is not a huge conflict, even the major conflict seems almost an afterthought. The movie is just flat out nice.

Sandra Bullock, an actress who operates in a range from pleasant to super annoying, is excellent in this dominant role. She is never too tender, which would go against the character, but she obviously has a great capacity for love and really wants to do the right thing. The rest of the family, played by Tim McGraw and two child actors all do a good job and the kid playing Michael does a well enough job, even though the character does not get nearly enough to do, if you ask me.

The football scenes are pretty fun to watch, you feel the hits pretty well, but the movie has a tendency to gloss over the football a bit. The story is a bit too much on the Bullock character, so it is hard to really feel for Michael because we are really watching the Bullock character's story in how she relates to Michael, not the other way around. The movie makes the mistake of making the young black man look hopeless without the white savior and the final voice-over kind of solidifies that point and that is unfortunate. I wanted just a bit more focus on Michael's struggle and his consequent triumph.

While it is far from a perfect movie, The Blind Side is a nice story brought to the screen for the perfect season. When Leigh Anne took in Michael she had no idea how it would turn out. She wondered if he would steal something and she had to endure questions about white guilt and her kids probably endured some hardship from their friends, but the family knew it was the right thing to do, and in return Michael Oher graduated from high school, got a college education and is in his rookie season in the NFL.

Final Grade: B-

P.S. The movie begins by showing the absolute worst NFL injury ever and it is just as gruesome now as it was when I first saw it. Poor Joe Theisman.