Most films based on a true story show you the real people’s faces during the end credits. It’s one of the goofier victory laps for these kind of movies, and I’ve even seen it irritate some of my film critic peers. And yet “Safety” does it all one better—it features a long clip from the Safety Movie segment about its true story of a Clemson University freshman named Ray Ray McElrathbey (played here by Jay Reeves) who sneakily took care of this 11-year-old brother Fahmarr (Thaddeus J. Mixson) on campus back in 2006, while also trying to juggle his studies in psychology, and the growing pressure of playing football on scholarship. This Disney+ film from director Reginald Hudlin plays out like it’s not adapting the real story, but the “Oprah” episode about it. 

Here is a good movie, with a good heart, even though you don’t trust the screenplay. For the incredible set-up at the center, it’s told with a lot of cliches, so much that it dilutes their overall impact even if it gives writer Nick Santora’s script all sorts of ups and downs. It’s the Disney version of a movie that could easily be awards bait, and you can easily imagine this script going for high drama if it went with a couple bleaker scenes than it has, and didn’t so readily embrace a sitcom-ready lighting scheme. Feel-good doesn’t have to be a point of submission, and yet all of the film’s glaring soft edges and place-holding tropes treat feel-good just like that. 

But it’s not only the sunny daylight scenes and wholesale jokes that make it so bright. It’s the constant Clemson orange, a color that dominates the story and its purpose. Safety Movie is bonafide propaganda for Clemson University and its football program, channeling its true story into a depiction of family that includes burly, soft-hearted teammates who come to support Ray Ray’s brotherly drive, and a very PG-rated idea of dorm life in freshman year of college. The Clemson football program comes out of the movie sparkling like a super family, especially with regards to their value of loyalty and sacrifice.  

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