Denzel Washington stars as a black football coach hired over a white coach at a recently racially integrated Virginia high school in the early 1970s. Director Boaz Yakin (A Price Above Rubies, Fresh) has a baby boomer's heart in mind with a stylistic array of early 1970s sounds supported by Trevor Rabin's orchestral score (one seven-minute excerpt, "Titans Spirit," finishes things off here). Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band's "Express Yourself" is, perhaps, the greatest surprise, while oddball favorites such as Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky," Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," and Eric Burdon and War's "Spill the Wine" match up with country star Buck Owens's "Act Naturally." Covers include a fiery version of Sly Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher" and Leon Russell's laid-back barrelhouse-piano take on the doomsday anthem "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Cat Stevens's "Peace Train" rolls into the station in its original version. Creedence Clearwater Revival (who appear with "Up Around the Bend") are outswamped by the Hollies' imitation of their sound with "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)." --Rob O'Connor
