Rudy always wanted to play college football at Notre Dame not ending up in the steel mill where everyone in his small town worked. He did not want to give up on his dream despite his grades being low and half the size of the other players. But he had more heart and spirit than most of them combined.
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Its been a very long time since I last watched this film and I am more than happy to say that it is even better than I can remember!
Rudy wants nothing more than to run out on the field as a Notre Dame player, told by everyone that he will never achieve that dream. He doesn't let that stop him, when a close friend dies he sees this as his big opportunity to go for it. He doesn't have the grades to go to Notre Dame so must go to a different college in order to build this up and then transfer across. He puts in a lot of hard work with help from D-Bob someone he meets early on. It becomes a lovely friendship and that is certainly a highlight of the film.
Willing to do anything to be around the football team he originally volunteers to work at the stadium with Fortune, who actually manages to pay him and sort him out with somewhere to sleep at night. You cannot argue with Rudy's heart and desire even if his physical ability does not match that. When he eventually gets a transfer he tries out for the football team, he gets on the 4th team which are basically used as real life hitting bags for the the first or second team to prepare for the next game. With this being his lifelong dream he does not know when to quit and gets battered on a daily basis.
Everything about this film is feel good the actual story which gives you hope when chasing your dreams if you really want it enough. If you work as hard as possible, he was never going to be a star player and he probably would have never even got to run out on the field if he hadn't shown that desire which the other players really did admire from him. Even the coaches wishes the star players had his heart and passion to want to play.
Performance wise Sean Astin really is outstanding in the leading role and you cannot help but love Rudy. I had actually totally forgot that Jon Favreau was even in this film and he was just brilliant as well, creating amazing chemistry for the friendship with Astin. Another I forgot about in a smaller role was Vince Vaughn, just showing that is is always nice to go back to older films and seeing familiar faces pop up that you probably didn't really think about the first time.
This helps to show just how amazing sport can be and inspiring, this transfers in the best possible way on screen and to this day this is really one of the best American Football films around!