Discouraging Words on the Marshall Movie

I have not yet seen We Are Marshall, the new movie that tells the story of the Marshall University football team plane crash in 1970 and the rebirth of the program. It's just not my type of flick - a sort of "rah rah" Up-With-People kind of thing (I'm odd that way) - quite frankly, if the film was called We Are Murray State it wouldn't even be on my radar. In addition, reviews of the film from those without any connection to MU, Huntington, or West Virginia have been tepid, at best. I'll probably Netflix it at some point, just to say I've seen it.

Jedi jawa has an extensive review here, along with links to many posts by The Film Geek about the film.

A WVPB documentary about the same event from a few years ago was very interesting, but that was telling the "real" story. According to Charleston Daily Mail sportswriter Chuck Landon, who wrote for the MU paper at the time of the crash, the movie plays fast and loose with lots of facts (although jedi jawa's source disagrees). What's frustrating about Landon's claims, if true, is that most of the changed facts aren't any more compelling than what really happened. It's a shame if Hollywood took what is a real story rich in drama, heartache, and redemption and changed a bunch of things up just so it would look better on screen.