Disney has tweaked their sports formula a few times over their run. Remember the Titans tied the story to some larger tale of race relations in the US. Then in comes The Blind Side, which used the position the player played as an allegory for the life they’ve lead. Safety is the position allegory if you can’t already tell. It’s cliched and a propaganda film for Clemson University, but stories about incredible people like Ray Ray McElrathbey (Jay Reeves) need to be told.
Ray Ray, after sitting his first year at Clemson, is ready to compete for the starting safety position at school, which takes a lot of time commitment and studying, increasing his already high course load and cutting into whatever tiny free time he had that he wasn’t working to pay off his student loans. Ray is so distracted that he forgets to check in on his younger brother Fahmarr (Thaddeus Mixon). Turns out, things are going horribly for the younger McElrathbey: mom relapsed and is in rehab, leaving him basically a ward of the state. Instead of leaving his brother subject to the foster system, Ray takes custody of his brother for a month, to give his mom time to recover. How hard can it be to hide a kid from your RA, coaches (James Badge Dale, IronE Singleton), roommate (Hunter Sansone) and maybe girlfriend (Corinne Foxx)?
What you see is what you get with Safety. Good people stepping up and doing good things for people in need, with a chuckle or 2 along the way. Sure it’s schmaltzy, but this is a schmaltzy story, so that’s ok. This movie can fall into the “I’m sorry” trap to justify Ray hiding his secrets, but it’s still a joy and triumph seeing the team band together to help their friend in need, including a few Clemson coaches (which is why they agreed to use their logo in the movie). And eventually, Ray figuring out how to transform from brother to father. Along the way, we get funny hijinks like school dance prep and strange roommates that aren’t amazing, but get the job done. Though football is secondary to what’s going on, the story finds a nice inroad with how teams dissect plays to try to plan to play an opponent, using that discipline and foresight to play off of Ray’s attempts to plan out how to raise a brother like a son. In addition, we get exposure to the biggest hurdle of Ray’s selfless pursuit: dubious rules by the NCAA that forbid letting players receive money for their football contributions. Though not incisive, hopefully that will spring awareness into the ludicrous position college players are put in.
So here’s to you Ray McElrathbey! Thanks for doing the right thing again and again, especially during the early 2000s music era. I love a good TI “Bring Em Out” montage. I’m also looking forward to the “Long Snapper” football film about some sort of gymnast wanna be quarterback that aims to hit things at long range through the legs. That fulfills the Disney sports movie allegory right?