Invincible

Mark Wahlberg plays 30-year-old Vince Papale, a bartender in South Philadelphia who regularly plays pick-up tackle football with his friends. He's clearly the best player on the field. When new Philadelphia Eagles football coach Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) offers open tryouts to improve morale and encourage involvement of the fanbase, Papale's friends convince him to tryout. Since there is a movie being made about him 30 years later and not the hundreds of other guys who tried out, it should come as no surprise that he makes the cut.

But predictability and familiarity are the only setbacks in an otherwise successful movie. Papale's friends are well cast and interact well. The attention to period detail with respect to the haircuts, cars, and music is well done. The 70s rock songs, in particular, are mixed well with the dialogue and action. But please, editors and directors, stop using songs from Boogie Nights (especially if Mark Wahlberg is on your monitor). Unless your last name is Scorsese, you won't do it any better.

It's not quite as good as Friday Night Lights, which had bigger themes about high schoolers dealing with the future, or the similarly structured Miracle, which was about an event uplifting for the entire country, not just one East-coast city. It doesn't dabble into politics like those 2 films either, but Invincible is still a solid sports movie. B

Medical mistakes: None. Of note, the definitive study on why everything starts to hurt the day you turn 30 has yet to be performed.