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'The Express'

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BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday

October 10, 2008

No one is going to approach " The Express" - which is both a biopic and a sports movie - with anything but justifiable expectations that the subject will be exalted and the struggle severe. But what happens in "The Express" really happened. Which means 1) you can't count on anything and 2) much of the black-white controversy that fuels this period piece is a study in mottled, moral gray.

All of which makes this sturdy, action-elevated football movie - directed by the perhaps unlikely Gary Fleder ("Kiss the Girls," "Runaway Jury") - a far more intelligent movie than the ads might make it seem. Based on the real-life Ernie Davis (Rob Brown) - who entered Syracuse University at time when a large slab of the nation was not "ready" for a black football star - it takes a nuanced look at the relationship between the sensitive Davis and his coach, the celebrated Ben Schwartzwalder ( Dennis Quaid), who wasn't quite ready for Davis, either, but grows into it. Quaid is terrific and so is Brown. And given the action and the easily exploitable subject matter, "The Express" is a far more human story than it needed, on someone's spreadsheet, to be.

(PG)

PLOT The triumphs of legendary running back Ernie Davis, who in the wake of the civil-rights struggle (and Jim Brown) helped thoroughly demolish the color line in college football.

CAST Dennis Quaid, Rob Brown, Omar Benson Miller

LENGTH 2:09

PLAYING AT Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE Gracefully directed integration of action and ideas, solid acting and cinematic adrenalin. Brown and Quaid are first-rate, and Omar Benson Miller sparkles.