Every time I hear this Al Pacino locker-room speech, I feel the current all over again. It’s one of the best passages Oliver Stone ever put to pen, and may well be the most inspirational levitation moment ever delivered in a film. Because the sports context ain’t the half of it.
“We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And we can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us. Or we can fight out way back, into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch at a time. That’s what football is. That’s what life is. The margin of error is so small, it’s inches…and the inches we need are everywhere around us. On this team we fight for that inch. Because we know that when we add up all those inches, that’s going to make the fucking difference between winning and losing. Between living and dying. In any fight, it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s going to win that inch.”