5 things about ‘Rudy’ that irk me

I spend too much of my life scrolling Twitter. That’s something I’ve known for a long time but still continue to do it. However, late last night I saw a tweet that it was the 28th anniversary of the movie “Rudy” being released in theatres.

I was in second grade at the time and my parents took me to see it that fall right as Notre Dame was in the middle of a national championship race that was only making my young Irish fandom grow by the week. The movie only made me like Notre Dame football more and to this day if its on TV you can bet I’m not going to be changing the channel until it’s over.

That said, I’ve still got a few issues with it.

Joe Montana went through and detailed flaws with the movie long ago but I’ve got a few of my own I need to get off my chest and the 28th anniversary (+1 day) of it’s theatrical release is just the time to do it.

5. Scheduling Issues

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Is this me being a nitpicker? No doubt, but I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t. As the movie goes through a montage of Rudy’s time on the practice squad they flash to a scoreboard image of Notre Dame taking on Penn State as the snow falls hard.

To any Notre Dame fan with the least bit of memory they know this is from Senior Day 1992 in the famed “Snow Bowl” that the Irish won thanks to late heroics from Rick Mirer, Jerome Bettis, and Reggie Brooks.

Notre Dame didn’t play Penn State during Rudy’s time on campus and their last game of his senior season in the movie against Georgia Tech was actually just their last home game as they traveled to both Pitt and Miami to close their 8-3 season.

4. Work vs. Relationships

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The message of “Rudy” is great and has value, no doubt. Essentially if you work hard enough then you can make your dreams come true.

To an extent that is correct but what isn’t shown in the film nearly as well as it is in “Rudy Ruettiger: The Walk On” is how the young man knew the importance of forming relationships from the first second he stepped foot on Notre Dame’s campus.

It’s certainly shown by Rudy forcing his way into Parseghian’s office and a couple other ways but after seeing “The Walk On” I gained an infinite respect for his ability to create and develop relationships that made his dream become a reality that weren’t nearly as evident in the movie.

3. Dan Devine's Portrayal

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So the story goes that in order for Ruettiger to get someone to put his story on the big screen Dan Devine had to to more of a villian. Devine was portrayed as a total demon in the film, something he signed off on.

However, it was actually Devine’s idea all along to have Ruettiger dress for the final home game but you’d never know that if you only watched the movie.

2. Final Practice Sequence

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It’s been 28 years since it came out so if you haven’t seen “Rudy” by now that’s a you problem.

When Rudy doesn’t make the dress list for the final game he storms out of the athletic facility and declares that he quits despite a few teammates begging him to stay. Fortune (his boss) then finds him staring blindly at the field when he’s supposed to be at practice and gives an epic pep-talk that gets the lad to “go on back” to practice.

It’s there Rudy is met with the slow-clap from teammates and is welcomed back immediately by the assistant coaches seemingly a day or two before Notre Dame is to host Georgia Tech and leads to players offering their jerseys in order to allow Rudy to dress, something we now know is made up.

This one sort of blends my anger over how Devine is portrayed into the issues with the idea that the team will just hault practice to welcome Rudy back and that everyone around just loved the guy. Well, besides Devine anyway, as he’s so in-tuned with practice that he is oblivious to what’s going on at that practice.

Even for a second grader at the time this part was far-fetched, and this is coming from someone thought the actor that played Pete actually died in real-life earlier in the film!

1. Rudy's brother is a grade-a jerk

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Rudy goes off to try to make his dream a reality after the untimely death of his best friend Pete. He does so against the wishes of his family and girlfriend but comes home at Christmas to show his report card to his father.

It’s there Rudy sees his older brother Johnny who happens to show up with Rudy’s former flame.

Rudy quickly leaves to head back to Notre Dame and this is never addressed again.

No brotherly fight? No word of it was ever mentioned again by Rudy?

That whole part played out like a bomb going off but was never addressed again the rest of the film. From what I’ve come to know the follow up to that occurrence would be worthy of a sequel in itself, but it just gets dropped and then viewers are seemingly just to forget it ever happened.

It still bothers me how big of a jerk Johnny was. That’s your brother, man!

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