Brian's Song (1971)

You won't be disappointed!

not horrible nor great

A Masterpiece!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This is a great movie not only about sports ,but how two men grew to love and respect each other !And I first saw it on Nov.30,1971 and enjoyed it so much .The cast that was headed by James Caan as Brian Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers with Jack Warden in his Emmy Winning Best Supporting Actor as the Coach George Hallas and Judy Pace and Shelley Fabares as their wives plus actual members of the Chicago Bears as themselves all did a great job in this truly excellent movie! And if anyone didn't sob when Gale at the sports award ceremony accepts the award and dedicates it to Brian and asks everyone to pray for him or when he tell the team about Brians illness is only fooling themselves because admit it we all cried .And I still cry when I watch it even now And I have it on DVD and when ever i go away its one of several movies i take with me to watch on my portable DVD player.And its funny when people see me watching the movie they remember it as well So indeed it has endured and will be remembered forever as a truly great movie !

This movie is one of the most heart-breaking stories ever based on a really true story! I totally cried my eyes out when legendary Chicago Bears football player Brian Piccolo was stricken with terminal cancer and the other players, especially Gale Sayers, dedicated themselves to do their best to win the game for their fellow teammate and friend. If you are a football fan and you are a fan of the Chicago Bears, then I would definitely recommend that you see this movie. However, you will need plenty of tissues for this one, trust me! This classic tearjerker film, Brian's Song, is definitely and absolutely a must for all football fans everywhere, and it is not to be missed! It is an absolutely touching true story on love, courage, teamwork, strength, sacrifice and friendship.

As a big fan of TV-movies from the 70's, you'd think I'd have seen "Brian's Song" a lot sooner. I finally watched it, and wasn't disappointed.You know the story, two football players, one white, one black, become best buds and help each other out. James Caan is superb as always, and Billy Dee Williams is pretty good.At first, it seemed a major part of the plot would have involved race. When Billy Dee is told by his team that he and Caan will be the first black and white roomies, he is told to pretty much expect big trouble in every city they play in, from both blacks and whites. However, we never see any of that trouble a single time. And really, the only hint of any trouble of any kind from the roommate situation went Caan's way - he reads a racist letter that someone sent to him, upset he was rooming with a "darkie" - and joked his mother sent it. And that's all for the big, bad roommate situation.However, this being 1971, there are various funny race jokes. Caan tells Williams he's going to name his new kid "Spade"; when Caan sees Williams fumble a ball around, he says something about "you'd think the ball had a white sheet on it"; Caan relates chicken to blacks; and there's a scene where Caan jokingly calls Williams a "nigger" and everyone gets a big laugh out of it. Ah, the days when one can make jokes that aren't politically correct! The ending is sad, and done very well. The whole movie actually is pretty good, and the friendship is built up nicely, We never really know why Caan as Picolo chose Billy Dee to be friends with, but it really doesn't matter. They made a good team in this flick.

This low-budget, made-for-television film from the early 70's reminds me again (painfully) why I don't "do" sports movies very often. The characters are little more than clichés in a script that is so loaded with clichés that it is amazing it doesn't sink under its own weight into the oblivion of never-never land. The screenplay by William Blinn is loaded with schmaltzy, corny scenes that are little more than feeble attempts to draw cheap tears from the audience. This type of film might appeal to jocks whose hat size is larger than their IQ, but the thinking person will avoid this movie like the plague and won't wont dare to let it contaminate their DVD. A better bet is the sports movie "Rudy."