Facing the Giants
Facing the Giants is a Christian movie showing a high school football call on God to help him to overcome "giants of fear and failure just staring down at him waiting to crush him". YouTube clip at 5:48
- This inspirational drama combines faith and football in the tale of high school coach Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick), who faces a losing team, a fading marriage and the possibility of being fired, but rises above failure to create a winning spirit on the field. While dangling at the end of his rope, Taylor puts his life in God's hands and, in doing so, finds a stronger purpose in this spiritual film from sibling writers Alex and Stephen Kendrick. NetFlix review
Plot
Grant Taylor is the head football coach of the Shiloh Christian Academy Eagles. In his six-year tenure, the team has never made the playoffs; in fact Taylor is yet to post a winning record in any of the seasons. In his seventh season, after another losing start, players are leaving the team and many of the parents want to fire him. But that isn't all which is going wrong in Taylor's life: his car and home are in serious disrepair, and he and his wife struggle with infertility (he learns he is unable to father a child).
Planning to quit coaching for a different career, after staying up all night praying and reading the Bible, Taylor (challenged by his old football coach; the role was played by Mark Richt, a well-known college football coach who is a devout Christian) tries a radically different approach: praise God no matter the on-field results. He convinces his team to increase their efforts, telling them they can win under God's guidance. The approach works: the Eagles win their remaining games and qualify for the state playoffs. One parent anonymously gifts Taylor a new vehicle and he is given an unexpected salary raise.
Though the Eagles lose their first playoff game, they are reinstated after the other team is discovered to have used ineligible players. The Eagles continue to win, making it to the championship game against the three-time and defending state champion Richland Giants. The Eagles start off strong but the Giants' superior talent begins to take over. Taylor then decides to use trick plays; the plan works but in the process the Giants retaliate by deliberately injuring the Eagles' kicker. The Giants then take the lead, the Eagles manage to get within two points via a touchdown and a somewhat miraculous extra point by the backup kicker, 145-pound David Childers.
The Giants march down the field to the Eagles' 1-yard line, needing a touchdown to seal the game. The Eagles' defensive lineman asks to come out due to exhaustion, but is encouraged to play for one more series of downs; the Eagles manage to hold off the Giants and (due in part to the arrogance of the Giants coach, who insists on a touchdown when a kneel down would have sealed the game) force a fumble and return it to the Giants' 34-yard line.
But with only two seconds left, Taylor has little option but to try a 51-yard field goal; David protests saying he's never kicked one farther than 39 yards (plus the kick would be into the wind) but Taylor encourages him. The Giants' coach once again shows his arrogance by calling a timeout to "ice" the kicker. But during the timeout, David's wheelchair-bound father Larry heads to the end zone and miraculously stands up, and the wind shifts direction, allowing David to make the winning field goal with no room to spare and no time left on the clock.
Afterwards, Taylor's wife announces that she is expecting. In the final scene, Taylor is playing a board football game with his son; his wife is pregnant yet again and the Eagles have won a second state title.
