The Junction Boys

If you're a fan of Tom Berenger you might like this film somewhat. He's one of my favorites but still I didn't find much enjoyment out of this true tale of legendary Football coach "Bear" Bryant.

Berenger's performance was very good, I thought, having read that the actual "Bear" was a really tough S.O.B. in real life. Everything else here is mostly mediocre. The film depicts well the hell these boys went through under his leadership but somehow none of this affects the viewer in any way. It could easily have been longer and fleshed out more characters, this is pretty shallow stuff.

As said above, Berenger does a good job at displaying the character's motivations for his cruel and unusual training method. Like in Rough Riders where Berenger basically became Teddy Roosevelt, here he seems to quite simply BE Paul "Bear" Bryant. Really good actor.

Liked movie very much. Berenger did outstanding job as Bryant, showing him as a hard, demanding taskmaster, though in real life, they say he was never this mean and ornery.

Don't know if this was done intentionally or not, but I don't think a single player was over 6 foot tall, nor weighed one-hundred seventy pounds! Nowadays, "players" this size would be lucky to kick field goals, but back in the fifties I'll bet it wasn't unusual.

Conditions for the players on the Texas practice field were inhuman. Actual players from that team who are still alive swear that this was NOT done on purpose to "toughen them up," but something the coach knew nothing about, and was shocked when he got there, but it was too late to turn back, and had to make the best of it.

Had a rather uplifting, yet sad ending, where the Bear tries to make amends. Though names of the players were changed, surviving members say all the players with speaking roles were based on ACTUAL players from Texas A & M.

Berenger/Bryant refers to himself as a "quitter" for leaving University of Kentucky the season before in a "hissy fit." Do you know why? Cause U of Kentucky's football AND basketball teams won the SEC Championship that year. And the Alumni gave hoops coach Adolph Rupp a Cadillac, and coach Bryant got a CIGARETTE LIGHTER!

Here's something ELSE you didn't know; movie was filmed ON LOCATION, start to finish in....................AUSTRAILA!!!!!!!!

I saw this film last night and was really impressed. The story line was good and Tom Berringer I thought was a great Bear Bryant.I learned about the man through his portrayal of him. I am not going to get into what it is about because we already know but I will say at the end I got a little emotional and that is a hard thing for a film to make me do. Out of a 10 I give it a 7.

The Junction Boys was a disappointment for me. As with any movie a certain amount of liberties with the facts is expected. However, After seeing interviews with the REAL Junction Boys it is clear that the facts played a very small part in this motion picture. If the real story about The Bears first team at Texas A&M were told this would have been a great movie. Tom Berenger did a good job as Paul Bear Bryant, but it all ended there. ESPN should be ashamed of this production.

We've all seen the "Win One for the Gipper Format". Junction Boys appears to show what would have happened if the Hitler Youth were coached by Jozef Mengele. Bryant's sadism and complete disregard for player safety and health isn't good coaching, it is ego run mad. The intimidation of players and insistence they play with broken vertebrae, and complications from heatstroke doesn't show dedication it shows the power of a cruel leader to abuse his relationship with exploited working class kids. I don't know the later health problems experienced by the Junction Boys but I am voting for "diverse and serious" If this was some attempt to tap into the "Duty Honor Country" vein since 9-11 it missed the mark. Maybe next month ESPN can try a more sweeping epic "The Caligula Boys"