Brian's Song

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	Buzz Kulik
Starring:	James Caan, Billy Dee Williams
Release date:	03 September, 2002
List price:	~~$14.94~~
Our price:	$10.80 that is 28% off!

Brian's Song

Average rating: Stars

Great Movie

This was a wonderful, heartfelt movie about two football players that came to be each others best friends. A real tear jerker.

Brian's Song - James Caan, Billy Dee Williams

One of the greatest films EVER

This is, without a doubt, one of the best films ever made. It's not just that though it is an absolutley extraordinary emotional experience. This is a very tough movie to review for me because no words I put down can really do the film justice. It really takes a lot to make me cry but this movie really had me reaching for the tissues by the handfuls.

PLOT:
This is really at it's core an old-fashioned story about friendship; the friendship between to pro-football players: Brian Piccolo(James Caan) and Gale Sayers(Billy Dee Williams. Both play for the Chicago Bears and both play the same position. They start as rivals but quickly become friends after their coach, George Halas(Jack Warden), rooms the players together by the position they play. Later Gale gets injured and it's Brian who works Gale back into shape and encourages him back in the game. Then Brian starts losing weight and coughing a lot and getting slower so the coach sends him to the doctor. We discover that Brian has cancer. Through it all Gale sticks by Brian's side and we see what true friendship is all about.

CAST:
James Caan(Brian Piccolo): Caan has gave a lot of great performances in his career but he has never topped this one. He is so full of energy and love for life that we truly care about this man and his fate. Caan gave one THE greatest acting performances ever in this film and his last scene still hasn't been topped for sheer emotional power.

Billy Dee Williams(Gale Sayers): Williams gave his best performance in this film too. He starts out shy and slowly starts to become more outgoing with Brian's help. He made me cry almost as much as Brian did with his two speeches: one to the team when he finds out Brian's sick and the other when gets the Courageous Player Award.

Jack Warden(George Halas): This is one of Warden's best performances as well. It's a close tie with his performance in 12 Angry Men. I especially loved his narration at the beginning and end of the film.

Shelley Fabares(Joy Piccolo): I don't know anything about this actress other than that she gave a great performance as Brian's wife. When she goes over to Brian after Gale walks back to his wife it is one of the saddest, most heartbreaking scenes ever filmed between her and Caan.

CONTENT: A few minor curse words are all that would be here to offend anyone and some racist remarks but they aren't really meant to be offensive though some may take them that way. Also the subject matter may be to mature for some younger viewers.

EXTRAS: The excellent score by Michel Legrand is enough by itself to make your eyes water.

FINAL WORD: One of the greatest saddest and most emotionally powrful movies ever. I challenge you not to cry.

James Caan, Billy Dee Williams - Brian's Song

An Amazing Friendship...Emotional Touchstone Finally on DVD

On the accompanying commentary track, Billy Dee Williams facetiously trivialized this movie as "a nice story about two guys who weren't gay." I can't believe it's been 34 years since I first saw it as a 1971 ABC Movie of the Week. I remember crying like a baby and talking about it with my classmates at school the day after. All these years later, this moving film still makes me tear up. At a mere 73 minutes, it tells the now-familiar story of Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, who both joined the Chicago Bears as running backs in 1965. While Sayers proved to be the superior player, Piccolo persevered with good humor and integrity as he helped Sayers recover from a potentially career-ending knee injury. The story is really about how they support and sustain each other, and when Piccolo develops lung cancer, it falls on Sayers to help him through as much as he can. Much of the film's power comes from William Blinn, who wrote a heartfelt, sometimes funny story about friendship and mutual respect without falling into cheap sentimentality, and credit obviously goes to veteran TV director Buzz Kulik, who guides this film expertly to unexpected emotional depths.

The two leads are stellar, and the chemistry between them near-perfect. On the verge of stardom as hothead Sonny Corleone in "The Godfather", James Caan portrays Piccolo as a genuinely likable, funny and determined guy who is convinced he will beat the odds. I doubt if he has played a role since with more emotional honesty, and in such a brief running time, he makes you care deeply about his character. With quiet strength and few words, Williams captures Sayers' initial reticence and increasing bond with Piccolo. In fact, he is responsible for two of the film's most heartbreaking scenes, both where Sayers needed to get out of his awkward comfort zone, first when he tells his teammates in the locker room that Piccolo is sick and then at the second awards banquet when he says with a lack of irony how he loves Piccolo. You are complete stone if you are not moved by these scenes. Jack Warden shows his dependably solid mix of macho gruffness and caring sensitivity as coach George Halas. The wives understandably take a back seat in the story with a post-Elvis era Shelley Fabares effective in her brief scenes as Joy Piccolo and Judy Pace even more in the background as Linda Sayers. Lending welcome realism, several Chicago Bears played themselves, including legendary linebacker Dick Butkus (before he became a TV actor), and the movie smartly includes archival footage of the real Piccolo and Sayers on the field. The beautiful, soaring music by Michel Legrand resonates still, especially the instantly familiar title theme. Keep in mind that "Brian's Song" was a TV-movie (still a concept in its infancy in 1971) made on the cheap with simple, reused sets and periodic fadeouts for the commercials that aired back then. I even recognized the Sayers house as Darrin and Samantha's house from "Bewitched". And truth be told, Caan and Williams looked more like track stars than football players. But the movie transcends those limitations in ways the producers could not have anticipated.

Watching the movie with the commentary by Caan and Williams yields an almost entirely different experience, comically irreverent as if two fraternity brothers reunited. While Williams gets more sentimental about the experience, Caan is flat-out funny as he talks bout his fantasy to become a Chicago Bear, how much more athletic he was compared to Williams (which both agree was true), commenting on their physiques at the time, and even speculating some people like Blinn and actor David Huddleston were dead (in fact, they aren't according to imdb.com). Caan also reveals that the movie was made only six months after Piccolo's death and that he felt the weight of his portrayal early on when acting in front of the real Joy Piccolo. There is also a 12-minute by-the-numbers featurette, "Gale Sayers: First and Goal", with the real Sayers, who looks great thirty years later and true to character, doesn't let much emotion show when he talks about his friendship with Piccolo. I'm just so glad they have finally put this on DVD, as this movie was such a powerful touchstone for my generation.