12 Mighty Orphans (2021)

An a amazing story of struggle, perseverance and triumph! Ty Roberts accomplishes exactly what he set out to do telling a story that has a history of texas football but the back story is what's more compelling!

Mighty Mites🎥🎬

Fmovies: The kind of film that just makes you feel good. It's as much about life as it is about football and the importance of chosen family, self esteem and solid values

The film does have an Indy look and it isn't slick, but it's definitely worth the time. A good buddy, date or family movie.

"12 Mighty Orphans" is one heartfelt feel good stand up and cheer like film as it looks at the life and times of a dozen Orphans in Texas during the 1930's and the great depression era. Set near Forth Wort, Texas an academy and school for the poor and forgotten has opened up and coming in is the start of a football team. Rusty Russell(Luke Wilson) and his teacher wife have came with open arms as he's a coach with a winning resume, and he gets the praise from the school's doctor Doc Hall(the good veteran Martin Sheen). Along the way as the boys enter no matter how troubled or different they bond and learn plenty about life, love, sharing, teamwork, and commitment. Though tough and rocky at first these boys learn the basic fundamentals of blocking and tackling and after some and a few loses the speed and hard work starts to pay off and wins start to follow one by one all the way up to the Texas state championship game! Well done film of how faith and hard work and determination can change life, really a fine film to few with friends or family as when watching all will feel the values of bonding and working together.

12 Mighty Orphans fmovies. This story shows the value of grit, perseverance and determination through the experiences of orphans and their inspiring football coach during the depression era. The realities of the era, the lives of the children and the passion and commitment of their coach and community tug at the heart strings. The fact that the characters are based on real people is so inspirational- make sure to stay to the credits! This is just what we all need after this past year! Go Mighty Mites!

This should be the first movie you take your kids to post-pandamic/now. It's inspirational and based on a true story.

Orphans in Texas in the dust bowl time period when many orphanages were transforming from work camps to more educational oriented institutions bring in a transformative teacher and football coach to field the orphanage's first football team.

My orphan wife and I found "12" very satisfying and highly emotional, given we are both orphans. (I spent 9 years at the Tarrant County Children's Home, cross town rivals of the Masonics in '58 when we beat them for the industrial league state basketball championship. Two of the "12 Mighty Mites", Charles Sealey and Jack Whitley, became my football coaches at Poly High in '61. Whitley flew a B-25 in WWII and Sealey was a paratrooper. Whitley also became superintendent of the Tarrant County Children's Home prior to my time there. My mother--Poly class of '38--likely attended the games with Poly depicted in the film.) This film has some great acting and a good script, although it seems a bit fast paced. I didn't want it to end.

Friday Night Lights was the ultimate in the Texas high school football drama genre, so author Jim Dent and the film team had a high bar to jump over. The Fort Worth Masonic Home teams of the Depression years provided just the right material. All Dent had to do was get it down on paper. Hollywood did the rest.

"12" is about a team overcoming amazing obstacles in the quest for the championship, a story we've heard a thousand times. But not about a team of orphans. It's characters that make a story interesting, and the film (and the book) excel when the focus is on these downtrodden cast-offs. But bits and pieces were left out that would have made them more real and compelling.

You can learn a lot about people sitting across from them over a meal. Someone cooked 3 meals a day,7 days a week, for the 150 orphans and staff at the Masonic Home, yet we never see them even in the dining room. Teenage boys talk a lot about girls, yet the subject rarely came up. In an orphanage everyone has daily and weekly chores, but the subject of chores goes unaddressed. Is this an orphanage or a boarding school?

What about families? Orphanages have visitation, yet the subject of family visitation was AWOL except in one powerful scene when a mean mother shows up unannounced to claim her now popular son 10 years after dumping him. It would have been more realistic to show the mother struggling to recognize her son, whose appearance would have changed dramatically during those 10 years.

The film's two 2 dimensional villains were caricatures--the larcenous, paddle-happy administrator and the cruel Poly High football coach. This storytelling faux pas nearly destroyed the film's credibility.

The film will be a major success for two reasons: a) it's a great Depression-era story of hope and triumph over adversity and b) it cracks open a new storytelling franchise--orphan life in America. If the film makes a lot of money it will pave the way for more realistic stories about the American orphan. For this reason alone, I take off my hat to Jim Dent, who had the courage to take on the challenge and then convince Hollywood to make it into a film far better than his thoroughly entertaining book. Dent has inspired me to finish my memoirs about living in the children's home, COUNTY KID and THE ADOPTIMIST.

Jim Dent, for profit or whatever reason, has single-handedly made America finally face the fact that this country has orphanages.