Professional sport is a tough, though often lucrative, way of life, and few sports come tougher than football. The movie Invincible, released in 2006 and starring Mark Wahlberg, takes the sport and layers it with a real life, true human story that makes it that much more than just a sports film.

Wahlberg plays Vince Papale, a bartender who at the age of 30 loses his part-time job as a teacher and is having other setbacks in his life. His wife, Sharon, divorces him and leaves him a note that states he’s nothing, and he always will be. The one thing that Vince has is the ability to play football, and playing nighttime pickup games with his friends and supporting the much-loved Philadelphia Eagles helps negate the feelings of worthlessness that come with doing various low paying jobs.

The Philadelphia Eagles are going through a bad patch in the NFL, so when they get a new coach who decides to hold open tryouts, Vince’s friends manage to persuade him to give it a shot. Unsurprisingly the tryout is reckoned simply a publicity stunt, and coach Dick Vermeil, played by Greg Kinnear, spends plenty of time watching overweight fans of the Eagles struggling to run a 40-yard dash time after time.

When he sees how impressive Vince is he follows him to the parking lot and, to Vince’s surprise, offers him a chance to be on the team. What follows is the classic “little” guy battle against the world, except this is the tightly knit world of football. Taking the note that his former wife had left him, he gets down to the task of making it into the team and proving her, and everybody else, wrong.

As the story moves on some romance comes back into his life in the shape of Janet Cantrell, played by Elizabeth Banks. As with many of these types of movie there are highs and lows, especially on the football field, and Wahlberg gives a very good account of the everyman hero Papale. The football action is enjoyable, but it’s more a movie that is looking deeply into a character rather than focusing solely on the sport.

The soundtrack to Invincible is an inspiring mix of rock from the 70s, featuring the likes of Bachmann Turner Overdrive, Ted Nugent, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Rod Stewart and Canned Heat.

Watching the real thing

The Philadelphia Eagles play in the stunning Lincoln Financial Field, just off the Delaware Expressway and close to the Delaware River in south Philadelphia. The team plays in the East Division of the National Football Conference and its 2013 season was very encouraging for fans. There may be many who go to watch the Eagles play who don’t know the real life story of Vince Papale, but for those who do it’s a great slice of history. Fans who get to know the background of the players often feel a much closer connection to them and to the team, adding value to the overall spectator experience.

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