Sorry, this movie sucks

So much average

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I'm not interested in football, so I expected to be bored by this film. Moreover, 1968 was a year of spectacular events world wide, from human cultural evolution to political revolution, so why should some football game between two private elitist universities matter? But wow! -- what a riveting and unforgettable story! The story of the game is recalled by the players on both sides -- many of whom are highly articulate, interesting characters to watch. We get the "7-Up" effect (only the age jumps between, say, 21 and 56) where we can see in the older men the same distinct personality and character of the young men they are remembering. For example, we see Brian Dowling, the demigod-like undefeated Yale QB, remind the audience, with visible irritation, that the 29-29 game was not a defeat but a tie -- he's still attached to his undefeated status all those years later. It's hard to describe why the story of this one football game feels so archetypal and earth-shattering. I felt like I'd just seen a remake of the Trojan War, or something on that epic and mythic scale, where the warrior heroes are reflecting back on battlefield highlights. No exaggeration.

Kevin Rafferty's ("The Atomic Cafe") new documentary shows us the historical match between Yale's and Harvard's undefeated football teams, in Cambridge, back in November 1968. The Vietnam War was roaring, birth control was a brand new wonder, and these 20 year-olds were meant to give their best in the greatest match of their lives. Through contemporary interviews with the players (including Harvard graduate and Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones), now forty years older and wiser, plus the actual game's footage with instant replay, we're transported to that exhilarating moment in time - the game and the era.Rafferty's film's best qualities - nostalgia, portrayal of an era, love of the game - should be praised; yet, it didn't always work for me. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine documentary, and I'm personally fascinated by the 1960's (it's not because I wasn't even born then that I wouldn't be interested in it!), but the main issue, with me, is the football match itself. Brazilians, myself included, just can't understand American football and its rules (I'm an even worse case since I don't even enjoy soccer; I know, shame on me!). And even though I'm not a big basketball fan either, a movie like "Hoop Dreams" managed to engage me throughout because of the humanity of its characters and the visual and narrative vigor of that long film. Not to say the players in "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29" aren't charismatic or remotely interesting; they are. But I believe being a football fan helps a lot in order to fully enjoy this film. My verdict: a fine documentary, but the thematic sport just isn't for me.

Pegasus3 should change their name to "Clueless1". The title of this documentary QUOTES a headline on the Harvard Crimson after this game. If Pegasus3 found this a very boring documentary, that is their prerogative, but this isn't just about football, it's much more a peek into one of the most turbulent years in American and world history. Just look at 1968: the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, riots on college campuses, the protests by Tommie Smith & John Carlos at the Olympics in Mexico City, 1968 was a benchmark year for youth. Sure, the comments of the players are mostly about the game, but their insights into what else was happening at the time were great, such as the Yale player who was the roommate of George W. Bush telling that he had a picture of Bush hanging off the goalposts at Princeton(for which, we find out, Bush was arrested, and BTW, talk's cheap, let's see the picture!!), and another Yale player telling & showing us that he was dating Vassar co-ed Meryl Streep at this time. We find out that Tommy Lee Jones was the roommate of Bush's opponent, Al Gore. I remember hearing about this game after it occurred, but I never knew exactly what occurred, and though the title may say "Harvard Beats Yale", I love the fact that all the players feel like winners for experiencing it. Although I can't see how something called J. Hoberman of the Village Voice could mention a piece of junk like either version of "The Longest Yard" in the same paragraph with this great little film. Of course, Hoberman is from New York, and I don't think they've played college football in New York since back before Columbia lost 29 games in a row. I love college football. I lived through 1968. I loved "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29".

If you like documentaries that examine a memorable event and crawl inside the heads of those who participated in it to put things in context and reveal attitudes, Director Kevin Rafferty's film will score a touchdown with you.It's 1968. Yale is an all-male school with a preppy-elitist reputation. Their football team is an undefeated homogeneous group that is expected to easily hand Harvard its first defeat of the 1968 season--and dash its conference championship hopes--when Yale travels to Cambridge to play the last game of the season. The Harvard team is anything but homogeneous. It has a player recently back from Viet Nam where he survived the battle of Khe Sanh and another who is a member of the radical SDS, protesting the war and picketing campus buildings.The game is going the way everyone expected: Yale has turned the game into a 22-6 rout by half-time. In the second half a desperate Harvard coach changes quarterbacks. Things don't change much until 42 seconds before the final gun. You already know the final score; it's not much of a spoiler when the title of the film tells you the ending. It's what happens in those last 42 seconds, and the recalled memories of what was going on in the heads of the Harvard and Yale football players forty years ago, that makes the movie worth watching.These aren't polished actors with scripted lines, they are aging men recalling four decades later what was almost certainly the most memorable game they played in during their football careers. It's interesting—and sometimes amusing--to listen to and watch the reminiscences, the bravado even this long after the game, and how sometimes people remember things the way they wanted them to be rather than the way they were (like when Yale linebacker Mike Bouscaren talks about putting Ray Hornblower out of the game with a tackle). Rafferty captures all of that while inter-weaving scenes of the actual football game. Letting us listen to the former players, Rafferty makes it clear that sometimes in football, as in life, you don't have to score more points to be the winner. The title of the movie, as the film's epilogue discloses, and anyone who has read a review of the film knows, comes from the headline in the Harvard Crimson student newspaper following the game: "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29." It is understandable Yalies might not like this movie. The game was viewed as a loss by anyone that knew anything about college football. And although Rafferty didn't bring it up, even Yale head coach Carmen Cozza was quoted after the game as saying it felt like a loss. It probably still feels that way to Yale fans. To the rest of us though, this is an entertaining and insightful movie.Incidentally, the University of Florida found itself in a similar situation when it came to Tallahassee to play Florida State University in 1994. Leading its arch-rivals 31-3 going into the final quarter, UF watched helplessly as FSU scored 28 unanswered points to pull out its own 31-31 "win."