Rudy (1993) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  David Anspaugh

Starring:  Sean Astin, Jon Favreau, Ned Beatty, Vince Vaughn, Jason Miller, Robert Prosky, Scott Benjaminson, Chelcie Ross, Charles S. Dutton

I've read about the factual inaccuracies of Rudy.  Well, there is a Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, Jr. and he played for two plays in a Notre Dame Fighting Irish uniform in the final game of the 1975 season.  Rudy is about how he found himself in that jersey.  It's a stirring story of a young man who didn't quit until he not only made the team, but found himself as both a footnote in team history and among its folklore.

Rudy (Astin) played high school football, but was deemed too small to play college ball.  He grew up in suburban Illinois as a Notre Dame fanatic, and roughly five years after he graduated high school and following the accidental death of his best friend in the factory where Rudy works, he lights out to Notre Dame to try out for the team.  The school breaks it to him gently that he needs to be a student there first and Rudy finds himself attending nearby Holy Cross college in order to work up the grades to get into Notre Dame.  Once he's accepted to school, then he has to essentially make the team as a walk-on, and even if he were to make the team, he'd be little more than a glorified tackling dummy.  That doesn't bother Rudy, who has made it his single-minded mission to call himself a member of the Fighting Irish.

Astin is focused, determined, and a textbook definition of an underdog.  While attempting to get into Notre Dame, Rudy takes a job as a member of the stadium crew.  If he can't play for them, he can at least be in the vicinity.  The head groundskeeper Fortune tells Rudy, "You're five foot nothing, 100 and nothing, and you'll walk out of here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame,"  The movie doesn't even tie Rudy down with a girlfriend, although he has one early in the film who is conveniently discarded.  The movie focuses on Rudy's dream and fighting spirit he exhibits in trying to obtain it.  It's not a spoiler that he achieves his goal, because otherwise there wouldn't be much point in the movie.  But then the movie takes it a step further by adding in a swelling, emotional score and a goose bump-inducing finale.  Did everything occur as the movie says to reach that pinnacle?  No, and who cares?  The movie is riveting in the tradition of Rocky, and that's not something I say lightly.