Review: Touchback
If we could go back and change one aspect of our past that would change everything about our future, how many of us would take that chance? Questions like that are obviously silly and they serve merely as discussion points rather than actual situations, but the question is an interesting one nonetheless. The football film Touchback even asks a great question with its tagline, "Would you give up everything you love for a shot at everything you've wanted?" When worded that way, a simple premise becomes infinitely more interesting.
Scott (Brian Presley) is the quarterback of the high-school football team in a small Ohio town, and in 1991 he leads the improbably successful team all the way to the state championship. On the final drive with his team down, he must take the ball and run down the field to score because he missed a wide open receiver. As he dives above the goal line, he badly injures his knee and from one second to the next he goes from a future college football with definite NFL aspirations to never being able to play football (much less walk properly) again.
Fast forward 20 years and Scott's the only farmer in town farming soy beans -- no one tells him this will work. He's got a loving wife and two great kids and his friends are some of his old high-school teammates. As much as this town loves football, he's as far removed from it as possible. Never going to games or even watching them on TV, it's obvious he regrets the turn his life has taken. Until one day he wakes up and he's somehow been transported back in time to that fateful week 20 years earlier and he realizes he's got a chance to right the ship that is his life. But will he do it?
The beats are predictable, and the story itself as stated earlier isn't the most original. Kudos deserve to be handed out for Touchback, though, because no one mails in their performance. Kurt Russell as the head football coach is as heartfelt as any role can be. It's maybe a bit underwritten, because the closeness of a football coach to one of his players is more implied than actually shown here. But writer/director Don Handfield has crafted a really good film. One that football fans can certainly relate to and enjoy.
While there are other movies that have told the same story, Touchback goes to places that are a little easier to relate to than similar films. Films like Mr. Destiny come to mind when watching this. Despite the story's predictability, it's easy to see why the grass isn't always greener on the other side, and maybe things happen for a reason, or whatever other cliche you can throw at a film like this, it shouldn't be as easily dismissed. If given the chance, see Touchback.