When I saw the original Brian's Song from 1971 with Billy Dee Williams and James Caan, I was entertained and very moved. I didn't see how they could have done a better job with a story like this. As it turns out, I was right, but I never thought it would be a portent of things to come. Remaking a masterpiece like the original begs the question, as Roger Ebert once said "Why are they remaking the good movies? Why not remake the bad ones?" This film is definitely a case in point.
This version is, in a word, terrible. The writing is extremely bad, the acting is awful, and the scenes are dramatically shapeless. Most notably, the film was overtly miscast. The original 1971 film was honest, but appropriate about the racial issues at the time. The remake is much too delicate and only seems to be worried about being politically correct and inoffensive. Sorry, but that doesn't make for a realistic portrayal of the time period that this film is trying to illustrate.
In the original, Brian Piccolo, played by James Caan, is a likable, fun-loving, nice, loose guy with a good sense of humor and who loved life. Sean Maher's portrayal is a disgrace. In his performance, he makes Piccolo look like an annoying, ill-mannered, judgmental jerk. Mekhi Phifer is almost as bad as Gale Sayers, who makes him look like an on screen version of Deion Sanders. As the players in the movie put it, he does indeed come across as "uppity," flashy, and seemingly avoiding contact with others because he thinks he's better than they are, not because he's shy.
The other lead in the 1971 version, Billy Dee Williams, played Gale Sayers as the man he truly was: a quiet, unprepossessing, gentlemanly, shy type who simply felt awkward around people because he had trouble relating to them. I would've liked to have seen actors with personalities more similar to the characters portray these two players: like Rob Brown as Gale Sayers, and James Vanderbeek as Brian Piccolo.
The coaches are portrayed as stiff, businesslike men with no affability, personality, or compassion for the players. Ben Gazzara is totally unconvincing as George Halas, and looks and speaks more like a priest than a pro football coach. The dialogue is truly insulting because it spells out what we already know about the players. Most of the time, the characters sound like actors reciting their lines and forcing information on the audience, instead of people who are speaking conversationally and expressing their true feelings.
When Joy Piccolo says to Brian, after seeing Gale's acceptance speech for his rookie of the year award, "He's not arrogant, he's shy," it's useless information we already know. Another example: when Brian and Gale are running together to help rehabilitate Gale's injured knee, they're both expressing their worries, strengths, and weaknesses, most notably Gale's anxiety about life after football, and Brian's aspirations about when he'll actually be able to make his contribution to the team. These things were wisely never expressed in conversation in the original because the writing was intelligent enough to allow the audience to figure it out for themselves, without unnecessary discussion. Good films never use dialogue when they don't need to.
Finally, the beautiful instrumental musical version of the song "The Hands of Time" elevated the mood and poignancy of the first movie, which the remake could've used more often. Why didn't they use the music again in more of this movie? This is an example of how music can magnify the illustration of a scene and ultimately enhance a story.
This movie left a lot to be desired, but a story as good as the first one needn't have been remade in the first place. I would recommend the 1971 film as a true timeless classic and one of the best sports movies of all time. The remake was just a bad idea that should have never happened.
