New Disney+ sports movie 'Safety' might even make you like Clemson
They barreled down the hill at Death Valley, dozens of orange-clad Clemson football players, slapping Howard’s Rock and entering the stadium to the sonic-boom cheers of 85,000 fans. They whooped it up, bouncing on the balls of their feet as they prepared to take on Florida State in the 2006 edition of the Bowden Bowl. The band resounded, the crowd pulsed, the atmosphere was college football at its purest.
Seven-and-a-half minutes and four plays later, it was over. The “players” and “coaches” left the field. Because this wasn’t 2006, this was 2019, and the actors had to make way for the real Clemson football team.
The footage from that little exhibition, filmed during halftime of the Clemson-Charlotte game last September, forms the climactic scene of “Safety,” a new movie now streaming on Disney+. It’s a thrilling moment — CGI crowds couldn’t match the real-world vibe of a truly full stadium — and it might even quicken the pulse of a Seminole or a Tiger.
Directed by Reginald Hudlin (“House Party,” BET) and streaming now on Disney+, “Safety” is the latest in a long line of inspiring sports movies that wend their way from jaunty kickoff to tough first half to all-hope-is-lost third quarter to carried-off-the-field triumph. The (mostly true) film traces the (true) story of Ray Ray McElrathbey (played by Jay Reeves), a Clemson redshirt freshman in 2006 who unexpectedly must adopt his little brother Fahmarr (played by Thaddeus J. Mixon) when his home life detonates. Forced to choose between family and football, Ray Ray attempts to hold onto both.
“I love a great human story,” Hudlin told Yahoo Sports. “What I love about this movie is, it’s resonating with women and men. Everybody’s loving it. You can watch it with your whole family.”
In the course of the film, as in real life, McElrathbey tries to hide his 11-year-old brother, fearing he’ll be kicked off the team if his little brother gets discovered. When Fahmarr inevitably reveals himself, the team bonds together to help out the McElrathbeys … only to find themselves in the sights of the NCAA for, you guessed it, improper benefits.
“There’s so much unfair about the world. [Ray] has to overcome a tremendous amount of unfairness,” Hudlin said. “Ultimately, the school is tough on him because they’re scared of being penalized. … To the NCAA’s credit, they realized the road needed some modifying, so they made the change and made it easy for him to do what he needed to do.”
Scripted as tightly as a Dabo Swinney gameplan, “Safety” takes us on a tour of classic college football tropes: the roommate from a culture so different he might as well be from Westeros, the teammate who gives Ray hell but ends up embracing him, the flinty coach who wants Ray to live up to his potential, the quiet moments of decision and the proud moments of team unity. You know they’re all coming, and yet you can’t help but get a little swept up in it all. This is college football, after all, where reason is a five-touchdown underdog to emotion.
The Clemson association helps give an authentic air to the film — in addition to Death Valley, multiple scenes take place on campus — and given the loving omnipresence of the tiger paw, it’s no surprise that the university comes off looking like football nirvana: tough but fair, a family that has your back but won’t hesitate to call you out. Sure, the movie ladles on themes and terms like “tradition” and “excellence” and “dedication” like sauce on pork barbecue, but as long as you turn off your cynical side, it goes down smooth.
Along those same lines, it’s also not a shock that the film doesn’t delve into deeper, harder questions about college football, like: why does Ray Ray have to jump through so many logistical hoops in the first place, given that he and his teammates are the ones responsible for packing Death Valley and inspiring those deafening cheers? The absurdity of the NCAA’s crackdown on Ray Ray drives the second half of the film, but the way the NCAA — and Clemson — soak up billions in benefits from everyone on the Clemson roster is the unaddressed sin.
But that’s grinchy college football talk, and at its heart, “Safety” isn’t a story about college football, it’s about family, and the lengths we’ll go to in order to keep family together.
It’s a little corny, a little cheesy, but in a sweet way, like your school’s fight song. “Safety” hits all the right notes for a holiday movie in 2020. And even if its ending is as predictable as the outcome of a Clemson-Georgia Tech game, you’ll enjoy watching this a lot more than yet another playoff selection show.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com.
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