Sandra Bullock, Strong Script Bring Clarity to ‘The Blind Side’

Submitted by PatrickMcD on November 20, 2009 - 8:20am

CHICAGO – “Based on a True Story” films are difficult to pull off, especially those that are the improbable story of a white Memphis family adopting an African American football prodigy. Sandra Bullock is the mother, through it all, in “The Blind Side.”

Rating: 3.5/5.0

The football-themed title refers to protecting the quarterback’s blind side, the area where he can’t see a defensive linebacker coming. Symbolically, it also describes the life of Michael Ohr (an exceptional Quinton Aaron), a Memphis teenager who is discovered to be homeless by the Tuohy family, and is taken in by the firecracker Mom, Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock).

Michael’s blind side is his past, a difficult road of negative parentage and squalid conditions. The shelter that the wealthy Tuohy family gives him is almost too much for him, much as the private school a previous mentor managed to get him into.

”The Blind Side” opens everywhere November 20th. Featuring Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Kathy Bates, Ray McKinnon and several real college coaches, and is directed by John Lee Hancock. Rated “PG-13”