Greater 2016

     Brandon Burlsworth was born September 20, 1976 and he always wanted to be a football player for the Arkansas Razorbacks team.  He was told that he was too short and too fat but he wasn’t going to listen.  He graduated from high school in Harrison, Arkansas in 1994 and he became a walk-on player for the Razorbacks.  He turned down scholarship offers for other colleges because of his dream.  His family scraped together the money to send him to the University of Arkansas.  When he started, he was pudgy at 300 pounds, he needed to tone his body and develop a lot of muscle. After two years of hard work, he went back to the 300 pounds but he was all muscle.  By his sophomore year, he did earn a scholarship and a starting football position as right guard on the offensive line.  He was one of the few football players to graduate with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree.  Brandon brought the team back up from the bottom and he was drafted into the NFL.     

     This is a very good movie and very inspiring.  Brandon was determined and he didn’t take no for an answer.  The one thing I didn’t like about the movie is that it’s told in flashbacks and starts at the end of the story.  It can be OK to film this way but in this instance critical information is withheld from the beginning story and you have to guess until you get almost to the end?  3 ½* (I liked this movie)    

  

130 min, Bio directed by David Hunt with Neal McDonough, Leslie Easterbrook, Christopher Serverio, Michael Parks, Nick Searcy, Peter Gray Lewis, Fredric Lehne, M.C. Gainey, Wayne Duvall, Texas Battle.

Note:  Imdb 7.2 out of 10, Amazon 64% critic 85% audience, Amazon 4.8* out of 5 with 828 reviews, Metacritic 35 out of 100 with 4 critics 7.3 out of 10 with 6 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Fayetteville, Little Rock and Springdale, Arkansas.  The Indianapolis Colts wore his initials, BB on their helmets for the 1999 season.