It’s a reach to make a big- Hollywood “inspirational sports story” about a wide receiver who doesn’t even make the historical highlights section of his NFL team’s website.
Vince Papale caught one regular- season pass in three years for the Philadelphia Eagles in the late 1970s. His biggest claim to fame – other than his blue-collar roots in the era of “Rocky” – was recovering two fumbles.
Oh, and he was captain of special teams.
The Rocky of the taxi squad? Jerry Bruckheimer’s production team seems to be reaching a bit deep into the playbook, and pretty far into the pun book as well, for “Invincible,” the allegedly (but not really) true story of Papale’s short NFL career.
I’m a sucker for “true sports.” (See overinflated but heartfelt kudos for middling films like “Coach Carter,” “Glory Road” and “The Rookie.”) You have to punt on first down and fumble the snap to make me skeptical, and somehow “Invincible” manages to do just that. It’s not that it’s awful, it’s just so consistently mediocre and tonally flat. Kind of like an NFL preseason game.
Which is exactly where we spend most of our time with Vince: the preseason. Mark Wahlberg plays Papale, fictionalized in the movie as a struggling substitute teacher and bartender when Eagles coach Dick Vermeil called an open tryout to boost public enthusiasm for the pathetic Birds.
If you’ll pardon a blindside block from reality, that version of Vince is a bit too trite to be true. Yes, Papale hadn’t played college football, and was 30 years old when he made the Eagles training camp. But he’d already played two seasons with the World Football League by then, and raised enough interest among Eagles coaches that he was no anonymous schlub when he tried out.
“Invincible” is Bruckheimer’s “The Rookie” played in a minor key. Philly in 1976 is portrayed as a dying town, rusting under the corrosion of closed factories and job flight.
One of first-time director Ericson Core’s mistakes is to make football the savior of beleaguered Philadelphia. Sport may have indeed replaced religion as the opiate of the masses, but Core and screenwriter Brad Gann make Eagles fans look like junkies instead of working-class heroes.
Burdened by high expectations in the City of Middle Fingers, Wahlberg plays Papale like a man who just won a scholarship to mortician’s school. Who knew football was so depressing? The goofy magnetism Wahlberg brought to movies like “Three Kings” and “I Heart Huckabees” is nowhere to be found; the real-life clip of a grinning Papale recovering a fumble has more charisma in 10 seconds than the filmmakers allow Wahlberg in 100 minutes.
It’s the casting director who shouldn’t have made training camp’s first cut. As welcome as Greg Kinnear is in most films, he’s just not intense enough to play the high-wattage Vermeil; Kinnear’s appearance in one of the many shaggy 1970s haircuts showcased in “Invincible” prompts unintended titters from the audience.
Hair in all forms, from mullet to full facial, may be the real star of “Invincible.” Just like those now-ancient tapes from NFL Films, the Eagles locker room features more beards than a “Grizzly Adams” casting call. Elizabeth Banks sports no facial hair, thankfully, as Vince’s love interest, but she also seems to have left her charisma on the training table. She’s here for show, and surrounded by the hirsute goombahs crowding into Vince’s bar, Ruth Buzzi would have looked like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.
The most remarkable accomplishment of “Invincible” is to make a mid-’70s musical soundtrack sound spectacular. From Carol King and Rod Stewart to Jim Croce and Jackson Browne, “Invincible” is easy on the ears even when it’s no treat for the eyes.
Sure, Philly could use another hero from the same year that “Rocky” burst onto America’s film scene. Looking back, 1976 didn’t have a lot going for it beyond the Bicentennial.
But Rocky Balboa made it to the title fight and gave Apollo Creed all he could handle; the ’76 Birds finished 4 and 10.
Someone bring me “The Ron Jaworski Story.”
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
| “Invincible”
PG for some profanity, sports violence|1 hour, 40 minutes|SPORTS DRAMA|Directed by Ericson Core; written by Brad Gann; starring Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnear, Elizabeth Banks and Michael Rispoli|Opens today at area theaters.
