Inspirational pep talk on following your dream. If you've wanted all your life to play football at Notre Dame, and you never give up, even though you grow up to be "five-foot-nothing," and it's four years after high school, and your grades still aren't good enough, and you just keep trying harder and harder -- well, maybe you'll be able to get into the final game of senior year for one play during garbage time. But that's the cynical way of putting it, and even a cynic might give ground during the scene when the entire starting defensive squad volunteer one by one to sit out the game to make room for runty Rudy. A surprising, stoical, almost Thirties-style, almost Pat O'Brien-style job of acting by Sean Astin. A sensitive and sensible job of directing by David Anspaugh, who keeps his eye off the wins and losses and focuses instead on personal gains. And one beautifully realized image of exclusion when the ticketless hero gets turned away from the Saturday afternoon game, and the camera cranes up and up above his retreating figure, and up and up above the stadium wall. With Charles Dutton, Ned Beatty, Jason Miller, Lili Taylor, Greta Lind. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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