True story scores, but not Wahlberg's performance

	Mark Wahlberg's portrayal of Vince Papale leaves a lot to be desired. AP

In the movie Invincible, which opens Friday, there's a scene in which Vince Papale, played by Mark Wahlberg, leaves his South Philadelphia row home and goes for an early-morning jog. I wanted so badly for Wahlberg to cross paths with Sylvester Stallone running the other way, in a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, shadowboxing as he ran. Because if you think about it, Papale and Rocky Balboa could have crossed paths.

It was 1976. Rocky was in sorry shape, limping up the steps of the art museum, but he was out there. But then Invincible couldn't really have had a Rocky cameo, because it is, proudly, a true story. It's about a Philadelphia streetballer who answered Eagles coach Dick Vermeil's call for open tryouts and, against all odds, made the team and stuck for three years. If you throw Rocky in there with Papale, it would undermine Invincible's true-story credibility. But Invincible could have used a memorable character, fictional or otherwise, to liven it up a little.

Invincible serves up its meat and potatoes in a passable, if predictable, manner. And it gets a bunch of things right. The Philadelphians in this movie are all miserable losers who obsess nastily over the Eagles so much because they have little else to look forward to in their dismal lives. As someone who grew up near Philadelphia, I can only say, point taken. But Wahlberg makes an essential mistake by steeping his performance in the grimness and failure around him. He plays Papale the stoic and heroic route, manfully carrying the expectations and misery of his friends and family everywhere he goes. This is the wrong choice. Vince Papale went from being an underemployed guy on the streets to a player on his favorite football team. He should be smiling in more than two scenes in the whole movie. I am writing this two days after the press screening, and I can't remember a single line of dialogue uttered by Mark Wallpaper -- I mean, Wahlberg. Even the most ineloquent movie heroes get off a memorable line or two. Yo Adrian!

Invincible is the most fun during its open-tryout sequence. The scene is stolen by a fat guy in a green cape -- he is both completely ridiculous and, at the same time, a strangely plausible representation of a mid-1970s Eagles fan. He flies around the practice field like a superhero who doesn't know he doesn't have any superpowers. He's a complete goof. He has never has any shot at making the team, but he has more fun in that one scene than Wahlberg appears to in his entire climb up the ladder.

Greg Kinnear does OK as Vermeil, even though the casting is a little off. When I first heard that Kinnear was playing Vermeil, my reflexive sarcastic remark was, "Who's playing Ron Jaworski -- James Van Der Beek?" (Jaworski, it turns out, is not in the movie.) But Kinnear holds his own, even if he rarely shows Vermeil's deep-seated intensity. Kinnear should be projecting the air of a guy headed for a burnout, but more often he seems more like a guy coming from a spa treatment.

Perhaps this is all a little harsh. The movie hits its key spots. The game sequences have great energy. A classic-rock soundtrack effectively carries along some of the limper scenes.

And you should add a star or two to any review if you are liable to choke up when two people hug as one exclaims, "You're a Philadelphia Eagle!" And the movie ends well. There is a big-game sequence, and I hope I don't spoil too much by telling you that Papale makes a big special-teams play. An improbably big play, really. When I first saw it, I thought Hollywood couldn't help taking a little license with its "true story." But then the movie's epilogue showed an actual Vince Papale highlight reel, and there he was, making a play very much like the one in the film's climax.

The highlight reel is the movie's closing argument: This is a true story, not just some Rocky rip-off. Vince Papale did an amazing thing. Which is true. Too bad Wahlberg didn't make him an amazing character.

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