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Forever Strong (PG-13) Crane Movie Co. (118 min.) Directed by Ryan Little. With Sean Faris, Gary Cole, Neal McDonough, Penn Badgley. Now playing at theaters in New Jersey. 1Β½ stars
In rugby, the object of the game is to move, at all costs, a small and not particularly valuable object down to a predetermined goal. The objective is the same in "Forever Strong."
The movie isn't particularly deep and it's certainly not sophisticated. But it has a single point -- moral inspiration -- and it pursues it doggedly. But on the whole? I'd rather be watching rugby.
The film stars Sean Faris -- who looks uncomfortably like a baby Ben Affleck -- as a hotshot high school athlete. A drunk-driving accident lands him in juvenile detention; an understanding warden farms him out to a conveniently nearby world-class rugby team to re-knit his moral fiber.
The usual life lessons ensue.
The inspirational sports movie is its own genre by now, and it seems we've cycled through almost every sport at least twice -- soccer, baseball, football, hockey. Now it's rugby's turn. And that's fine -- a fast, rough, tactical game, it seems almost made for the movies.
It's the baggage that "Forever Strong" lugs after it that slows it down.
The first obstacle comes from its inclination to -- sort of, kind of -- tell a true story. Although most of the characters here are invented, coach Larry Gelwix is a real person. Yet he doesn't make much sense on the screen. Just who makes up the Highland Rugby Club? And why is this predominantly white team doing Maori chants before every game? It's never explained (and the spectacle of a bunch of Hollywood pretty boys screaming tribal war cries surely needs some explanation).
The second encumbrance comes from its determination to preach. This is to be expected, if you read past the movie credits -- the Utah production team specializes in Mormon-oriented entertainment. But it's ham-handed too, from its Sunday-school pep talks ("God doesn't make a no-good anything. .Β¤.Β¤. Pay attention to that spirit he put inside of you!") to its crude moralizing. (Outside of Salt Lake City, do high school coaches really worry about their athletes' virginity?)
Director Ryan Little handles the game scenes well -- there are times when the camera seems to be getting kicked around on the field -- but most of the movie is talk, and his camera does little but record the dialogue. (Of course, it doesn't help the visuals that the print shown to critics -- presumably the best one available -- was horribly scratched throughout the second reel.) Unlike the games themselves, the pacing is ponderous.
Faris is unexceptional as our hero, never drawing us into his conflicts or convincing us of his conversion, and making faces instead of acting. Penn Badgley, of "Gossip Girl," is an equally unrealistic villain; Neal McDonough, whose pale blue eyes have condemned him to a lifetime of cold-hearted monsters, plays another one as a withholding father. Only Gary Cole -- given the rare chance to play a hero -- has any fun with the sermonizing coach.
It's probably more fun than you'll have.
"Forever Strong" has some lively sports scenes, and if you know nothing about rugby -- or maybe if you do -- you'll find them entertaining and energetic. But the rest of the film is just slow-moving and static and sanctimonious. It's one thing to tell a bunch of varsity players to "take a knee." But it's another to demand that your audience genuflect.
Rating note: The film contains violence and substance abuse.
"Forever Strong" is billed as based on actual events -- even though a closing-credits disclaimer indicates it's entirely fictional -- but this earnest indie production comes across like formulaic fiction while taking cues (and recycling cliches) from the "inspirational sports drama" playbook. Still, the performances are credible across the board, excessive sentimentality is largely avoided, and the sequences devoted to rough-and-tumble rugby match-ups are expertly shot and edited. Pic isn't likely to score during its low-profile theatrical run, but ancillary playoffs could be profitable.
Sean Faris, looking like Tom Cruise's kid brother, is solid in the lead role of Rick Penning, a hard-partying rugby player who rarely impresses his demanding father. This is something of a full-time problem for the undisciplined teen, since his dad also happens to be the coach of his Flagstaff, Ariz., high school team.
After nearly killing himself and his girlfriend during a DUI incident, Rick is shipped off to a Salt Lake City juvenile detention center, where a sympathetic administrator (Sean Astin of "Rudy," the gold standard for inspirational sports movies) tries to nudge him onto the straight and narrow. Said path leads directly to Highland High School, home of a champion rugby team coached by Larry Gelwix, a real-life sports luminary (and tech adviser for this pic) effectively played as a soft-spoken, tough-loving sage by Gary Cole.
Director Ryan Little, working from David Pliler's by-the-numbers script, maintains a reasonably brisk pace while keeping the spiritual uplift relatively painless. (A brief discussion involving God's role in Coach Larry's game plan comes off as refreshingly matter-of-fact.) But the helmer never explains why and how a juvie hall inmate from out of state is allowed to play for a high school in Utah where he's not enrolled.
Nor does helmer Little clarify the rules of rugby for non-fans in the audience. (Fortunately, that doesn't make the on-field action any less exciting.) And it's never entirely clear why high school rugby players psyche themselves up before games by performing the ritual songs and dances of Maori warriors. It's said to be a team tradition, but that doesn't make it any less distractingly odd.
On the plus side, Faris persuasively limns Rick's transition from self-absorbed punk to selfless team player under Coach Larry's patient guidance. Stand-out supporting players include, in addition to the aforementioned, Julie Warner as Rick's understandably anxious mom, Max Kasch as a rowdy Highland player with personal hygiene problems, and Penn Badgley (TV's "Gossip Girl") as a Flagstaff teammate who feels betrayed by Rick's reformation.
First-rate tech values indicate the smart expenditure of a limited budget.
Sean Faris on location in Ireland filming the lead role in a new movie called Ghost Machine. Sean also has a new feature film Forever Strong opening September 26. It is about rugby player whose team competes against another team which is coached by his father. Sean plays Rick Penning in this sport centered drama. Sean's last movie Never Back Down won an MTV Movie Award for BEST FIGHT. E! Online said, "Best Fight each went to duos who may not yet be household names but could very well be one day if looks and chemistry have anything to do with it."
Sean won Junior Male Model of the Year when he competed at IMTA in 1999. Some of his past projects include the motion picture Pearl Harbor, the TV show Reunion, Life as We Know It, and the feature film Sleepover with two IMTA alums, Kallie Childress and Mika Boorem. He has been featured in several memorable campaigns and magazines, including Abercrombie & Fitch, GQ, Teen Vogue and Armani. Sean is in production on the film The Glass Eye. He not only plays the lead character Danny but he is also producing it with his manager, Dino May.
Stayed tuned for more on Sean in Ghost Machine and Forvevr Strong!!
Call Sean Faris a good actor. Call Sean Faris a bad actor. Just don't call the 26-year-old a model -- even if he does go shirtless a few times in his new sports movie, "Forever Strong," in theaters Friday.
"I don't want to do the Matthew McConaughey thing and have it in my contract that my shirt comes off a minute and a half in every film I do," Faris says. "I'm not trying to be that guy."
Faris shows off his muscles -- physical and acting -- in "Strong" as Rick Pennington, a troubled athlete given a second chance by an inspirational coach and teammates on the real-life, record-breaking Highland Rugby club.
Had you played rugby before? No.
How did you prepare to play a star rugby player? We learned all the rules, 100 percent. There's no way to fake it. It was a lot at once but we had six hours a day for like three weeks, so it was enough to learn. I come from an athletic background. I played American football, soccer and baseball. So I picked it up pretty quick.
Was the team experience in the movie similar to your own team experiences? This was like being on my eighth grade soccer team. We were undefeated our entire season that year because we just had fun. We were all best friends. We were coached by my friend's high school brother, which was fantastic. And we'd kick the ball at the RTA [Cleveland's public transportation] bus that went by every day. We'd line them up.
Are you competitive? Extremely competitive. Why I have a career is because I do not like to lose. It's a good thing, though. It's good drive. If I don't get the part, I want one of my friends to get it. If none of my friends get the part, I don't want anybody to get the part. It's, "Keep it in the family or I don't like you."
Are a lot of your friends actors? Most of them are. You kind of stay within the bounds of your career. You have the most in common. All my friends that are not industry of any sort -- as in the L.A. industry -- live in Cleveland, Ohio, or Houston, Texas. My dad's one of my best friends. My other friends in Cleveland were my best boys growing up.
How has your relationship changed with your friends since you became successful? With my four boys back home, forget about it. They're my homies. Those are my road-dogs. They'll be there for life. I get treated more differently in L.A. with friends that I was friends with before I was successful. They don't know how to treat you, it gets awkward to talk about anything you're doing because some of them work, some of them don't.
Getting back to movies, you said you don't like to take off your shirt for roles, but have you ever modeled? Just photo shoots for my [portfolio]. I had a great time in Miami, though. I was 17, I'm hanging out in Miami on the beach. It's November. My friends are knee-deep in snow going to school every day. I'm drinking Cristal and running around the beach. So I said, "I think this is what I'm going to do with my life."
REVIEW | Sports Wear: Ryan Little's "Forever Strong"
Ryan Little's "Forever Strong" is a friendly, heaping helping of rugby porn -- in senses both erotic and non. Seemingly cast top to bottom with holdovers from "Flaunt" photo-spreads and David DeCoteau flicks (in fact, fans of DeCoteau's boxer-brief brand of cheapo-homo horror will recognize the film's lead, Sean Faris, from his debut in DeCoteau's Blockbuster Video fave "The Brotherhood 2: Young Warlocks"), "Forever Strong" is a charming enough paean to muscle shirts, athletic shorts, and Faris's beauty mark.
Yet what really gets its tent rising is the sport itself, which the film nearly breaks a blood vessel trying to recoup as the pastime of choice for rugged young American men. Dare you cross one of "Forever Strong"'s rugby enthusiasts and they'll unleash a verbal tirade: "Actually Americans ripped off rugby, then added sissy pads and helmets," Faris's Rick Penning angrily corrects a bunch of his fellow inmates at the facility he's sent to after his second DUI conviction. And later, the film's token friendly (white) Rasta dude happily instructs a tyke on the side of the road: "Soccer is for kids. Football is for wussies. Rugby is for men."
Little's got an arsenal of post-"Friday Night Lights" techniques to hammer home the message: This ain't your nineteenth-century fop's "fute ball." As the opening theme song blares with all the power of a "Transformers the Movie" anthem, "Are you ready . . . or not?!" Hell, yeah, dude, we're ready: for that unholy mix of slow-motion and slowed-down frame rates that have overtaken action filmmaking; for those nattering little surveillance zooms that intimate some sort of documentary realism for no discernible reason; for rock dirges blaring on the soundtrack; for crazily overbaked low angles of balls sailing into the air and players thudding to the ground; for troubled teen Rick to spit in the face of his big, black opponent (later dubbed a "yeti" by some of Rick's teammates); for coach Gary Cole to shout "Get in there!" with unmistakable conviction; for "Gossip Girl" star Penn Badgley's wildly misguided tuft of manicured chin hair.
And hell, yeah, dude, some of us are also ready for Faris's unceasingly eye-catching wardrobe of this fall's line of skimpy sportswear, lit like Grace Kelly's nightgowns; gratuitous scenes of high schoolers (played by mid- to late-twentysomethings all) lounging poolside in swim trunks; for an almost complete disinterest in the female sex -- Rick's first girlfriend is unceremoniously catapulted into a wire fence thanks to his drunk-driving negligence, and a later, pouty-faced love interest, Emily (Arielle Kebbel), is hardly ever shown away from the bleachers, cheering Rick on.
This is guy territory, as evidenced not only by the strictly male environments of Rick's rugby team and juvenile detention lockdown, but also a subplot involving an intensely conflicted history between Rick's dad/coach (Neal McDonough) and Gary Cole's rival school coach, Larry. After Rick is allowed to leave his prison temporarily to play for Larry's morally righteous band of rugby misfits and learns to go on the straight and narrow thanks to Larry's more nurturing paternal presence and a philosophy of sportsmanship that makes room for reading to sick children and chanting in Maori (but, alas, no drugs, alcohol, cheating, lying, or promiscuity), he ends up playing on the opposing team from his own father.
Thoroughly resolvable issues ensue, played in appealingly by-the-book fashion by actors who have no delusions of grandeur. Faris, last seen in this year's similarly titled "Never Back Down," is ever the game superficial heartthrob (he flips competently between anger and "aw-shucks" naivete), and Cole, as always, manages to fully invest himself without ever seeming like he's taking the work even remotely seriously. Every genre plot point may fall in place with asinine precision, but I'll still take this glorified public service announcement over garbage from self-styled indie provocata-turds like Alan Ball and Neil LaBute. Would you rather watch "Towelhead"'s close-up of a thirteen-year-old's blood-stained panties, or "Forever Strong"'s adoring peek at Sean Faris doing sweaty, shirtless sit-ups? Moviegoers, pick your poison.
Hey visitors, Sorry for the lack of updates, Sean has been in Ireland filming a new movie and nothing else really to update. However, I am preparing for a major revamp for the site, getting some new pages up and updating the current pages as well.
I'm working on the gallery and the forum when I have spare time in my hectic schedule, they're coming along slowly, but surely!
At Excel Entertainment, we occasionally come across something that is not specifically LDS, but that is so interesting to our culture and values that we feel compelled to send it your way.
Click Here to download your FREE Screening Ticket at Jordan Commons or Provo Towne Center - Monday Sept. 15th at 7:30pm
Forever Strong is the story of an LDS seminary teacher who became a championship Rugby coach for Utah's Highland Rugby team and who over the years, coached them to over 18 national Rugby championships. His story was published in the Church News and his extraordinary success caught the attention of a movie production company and boasts and all-star cast of Sean Faris (Never Back Down), Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl), Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings and Rudy), and Gary Cole (Office Space) to name a few.
Never Back Down 
Forever Strong 
Brooklyn to Manhattan 
more...