Greater

Brandon Burlsworth grows up in Arkansas. He wants to play football and nobody will take him on the team; he is heavy, slow and technically weak. He enters university without a scholarship and applies to try out as a walk-on. The coaches are not obliged to take him and do not want to. He stays. He comes to training before everyone and leaves after everyone, and keeps the same order for four years. In the end he becomes one of the team's best players and is drafted. Then there is an accident. David Hunt directs. Christopher Severio plays Brandon and Neal McDonough his brother. The narrative rests on a real man; Burlsworth played for Arkansas, was drafted, and died in a road accident soon after. The frame is the day of the funeral; through that day the narrative looks back over his life. The matter it works at is work; the film puts forward not talent but repetition. The production has a religious strand and the narrative carries it plainly; the brother's argument about faith is a separate section. The game footage is limited and the film rests largely on training and family. Its limit is register; the narrative is at times too elevating and the character is shown as flawless. Who it is for: viewers who like sports drama based on real events. Who it is not for: it is predictable, the emotional register high, and the narrative didactic.