Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Craig Brown Very, very little sports action at all. It's a decent story, and one that deserved to be told, but lighten up with the religitard propaganda. I mean seriously it was not even needed to tell this young man's story, but here we have a fine example of the zealots attempting to disguise their prosthelytizing fan fiction as an actual movie worth watching.

razzel There is one thing I want to say right off the bat....this is absolutely not even close to The Blind Side or Rudy...both of which were stellar stories with very good acting. The acting in Greater was B level at its best.We watched this movie last night and it started off as a lot of inspiring sports movies do...with a kid that is faced with some kind of adversity. In this one Brandon Burlsworth has to overcome a childhood of growing up as a very overweight kid who is ridiculed for it but there are adults in his life who inspire him and help him get through the worst of it so he can keep going with his football aspirations.It started off as a perfectly nice, entertaining story. We enjoyed it despite the truly B level acting (don't let any of the ridiculous 10 star reviews fool you on that front). It wasn't until the last 3rd of the movie that you actually realized that this was a movie with a very very heavy Christian message. That is not a bad thing if it is advertised as such and that is the type of movie you like or are looking to watch. It really soured me on the whole thing since I think the film makers were pretty underhanded on that front. By the time the first hour and a half of the 2 hour 10 minute movie was over and it started in on the heavy Christian message (complete with a representation of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other in the form of a nasty man and an innocent high school football player), you were so far in that it wasn't worth turning it off.If Christian entertainment is what you are looking for, this is probably a 6/7 out of 10 movie.If you are like me and picked it up as a movie like Rudy or The Blind Side (as advertised), I'd give it a 4.5 out of 10. The end that made me feel like I was in an evangelical church service ruined the entire thing for me.

Zkot Pen Greater is a great movie -- greater than most, in my opinion. Christopher Severio, Neal McDonough, and Leslie Easterbrook, as well as the supporting cast playing Brandon's High School & Arkansas coaches achieved resounding success in making this film believable, and its real-life characters empathetic in every sense.Be that as it may, I couldn't bring myself to give it nine stars, for three reasons in order of importance to me, from least to most:1. I wanted to see a bit of Brandon overcoming some of his early obstacles. In particular, his growth spurt between high school and college seemed instantaneous, as if somebody had just clicked "supersize" on his body, and he was suddenly one inch taller and 80 pounds heavier. 30-90 seconds would have sufficed to show me, rather than tell me.2. Some parts of the script were a bit gushing with sentimentality, when there was absolutely no need for any melodrama in this story.3. In keeping with the bit of melodrama, I felt "The Farmer" who taunted grieving Marty was absolutely unnecessary. Was this person really there, doing that? I don't know, and I don't care. He's inserted into the movie in a way that seems like editorializing, rather than adding to the story. If a character isn't driving home the story, he or she should be eliminated from it, especially given the length of the film.To close out this criticism sandwich of a review, these minor flaws kept me stuck at 8.3 stars for "Greater," unable to round up to a 9-star rating. It's still a great movie. In particular, the intense sadness of the ending was much deeper than expected. After all, I reckon most viewers know how Brandon's life ends before they watch the movie -- it's explicitly stated in the Storyline for this IMDb page. Even so, the depth of emotion portrayed caused me to recollect the sadness of loss of close loved ones in my own life, and how much better I feel the world would be if they were still around, instead of abruptly removed from it as they were. The ending itself drives home that emotional connection (without requiring an extraneous character to spoon feed it to me).Eight stars!

martydorr First of all I would like to say that this review is not an attack on any of the real life characters within the story. I'm sure they are all nice people, and Brandon certainly seemed to change peoples lives for the better. He also battled adversity from an early age which again is to be commended. My problem is purely with the film itself, which I realized too late (about 40 mins into the film) that there were Christian undertones running right through the core of it, and certainly the last part of the film felt like I should have been sitting in a hall with a preacher in front of me. I am a Christian myself, God does not offend me in any way, nor his many followers. But what does offend me is the feeling of being duped into being given a sermon about "Gods will" every couple of minutes. I also feel that had the makers not concentrated so much on "spreading the word", and centered on the story of a sporting underdog done great, it would have been a good film. To call this film the greatest sporting film ever is quite frankly absurd, at best it is a TV movie for a rainy Monday afternoon, and that is if there is absolutely nothing else on. As a person, Brandon left his mark on this world which few of us get to do, but I personally feel that the film could have been so much better.