My All American

Like all heartwarming football dramas, My All American has positive messages and what should be an emotional storyline. But the movie is a little too focused on football, and Freddie is a little too saintly (a close friend even calls him a Pollyanna, and the term fits), for his story to feel authentic. It's not that biographical films need to be gritty or feature a down-and-out back story to be effective, but Freddie just seems too good to be true. He never questions his faith, his friendships, his coach, his father, or anyone, really -- except for a brief scene late in the film, after tragedy strikes.

Wittrock certainly has the chops to be a leading man, but there's not much range necessary to play a young man whose only ambition is football and who otherwise doesn't have any drama in his life. Freddie has a great, supportive family, a doting steady girlfriend, and a fabulous coach -- whom Eckhart plays as only slightly less godly than Bear Bryant in Woodlawn. Even after Freddie's cancer is discovered, not much changes; he looks sad in exactly one scene. Perhaps Freddie really was an eternal optimist, but the movie turns his story into a movie-of-the-week special rather than a fully realized depiction of a young man's brief but inspiring life.