Daily News from New York, New York • 52

..2 '-r-Nfc fvU1 Michelle Rodriguez, with Jaime Tirelli, in "Girlfight" Southern-set 'Titans' full of cliches stock characters REMEMBER THE TITANS. With Denzel Washington. Will Patton, Wood Harris, Ryan Hurst. Directed by Boaz Yakin. At area theaters.

Running time: 113 mins. Rated PG: Thematic elements and some language. Bf suspense is the thing you hate most about sports, about movies and, well, life in general, "Remember the Titans" is for you. This Jerry Bruckheimer-produced and processed schmaltz doesn't contain a single surprise and doesn't miss a single cliche. Based on actual events precipitated by the integration of a Virginia high school in 1971, "Titans" manages to turn the untidiness and tension of a genuine racial crisis and the on-field drama of a unique football season into a kind of Utopian final solution, where racial harmony is achieved through wish fulfillment.

Whether the characters and basic outline of events are true is irrelevant to a movie that feels as waxed as Madame Tussaud's Lassie. Despite end credits updating the lives of the coaches and players who found their metaphor for equality on the gridiron, "Titans" is history as filtered through the faux-liberal prism of Hollywood's dream factory, and an insult, I believe, to the people who actually carried the fight and endured the pain for civil rights. The film has so many phony peaks and valleys, it's hard to chart even as a three-act melodrama. It stars Denzel Washington as a Southern football coach who's hired to run the vaunted program at newly integrated T.C. Williams High, a school whose popular, suddenly demoted veteran white coach (Will Patton) is on the brink of induction into the state high school hall of fame.

Facing a season of sideline and on-field disruption, Washington's Coach Boone decides to jam togetherness down the throats of his staff and players from day one, making blacks and whites pair up as roommates at a summer football camp he runs like a Parris Island drill sergeant. There are a few epithets, some culture clashes, even a IF beth wms a nt nocEtou1 JAMI BERNARD "Girlfight" is also the rare movie of this type to look at the world from a Latina perspective. Not everyone with a dream and a track suit is Rocky. Jaime Tirelli plays the coach who recognizes Diana's potential and gives her lessons on the sly, trying to channel her brute a romantic foil. His growing interest in the non-prom queen Diana helps answer the question: Is a female boxer too tough to melt? The director and star both have unaffected styles that mesh perfectly for a movie that's uplifting and moving in a tra ditional Hollywood way, while also seeming as raw and unfiltered as cinema verite.

anger into art and discipline. Santiago Douglas is a fellow teen boxer who provides This Meaits in the right pS ace Gay romantic comedy breaks down barriers simply by being itself GIRLFIGHT. With Michelle Rodriguez. Jaime Tirelli. Written and directed by Karyn Kusa-ma.

Running time: 113 mins. Rated Language. At Sony Lincoln Square and UA Union Square. Aptly coinciding with the Summer Olympics, "Girl-fight" is the rousing story of an inner-city girl who makes good in the boxing ring. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival, Karyn Kusama's debut as writer and director puts a fresh spin on an old story the underdog who fights the odds.

Only this underdog is female, and although she may be all heart, she's all muscle, too. You've seen elements of this movie many times before hand the story is virtually identical to "Billy Elliot," opening next week, about a boy secretly learning ballet). But you've never seen Michelle Rodriguez, a feisty newcomer who plays a girl from Red Hook with a mean left hook. As we say in the boroughs, she's got a mouth on her. The charismatic Rodriguez learned to box from point zero for this role, and she looks like a ringer.

She plays teenager Diana Guzman, a feral, motherless creature whose penchant for flying into a rage at the drop of a schoolbook is earning her demerits. All that negative energy that seems so unfeminine in the larger world comes in handy once Diana sneaks into the boxing ring against the wishes of her Old World father (Paul Calderon). Diana sees boxing as her ticket out of the projects. It's also a natural expression of her pugnacious, guarded, precocious self. In addition, the movie sees it as symbolic of female empowerment; Rodriguez' muscle definition is so good there ought to be a spike in gym memberships this month.

By JAMI BERNARD DAILY NEWS MOVIE CRITIC The themes of this romantic comedy are universal, but the language is delightfully site-specific. In this crowd, a broken heart may require an emergency play-- ing of the soundtrack from "Beaches." And when the bons mots dry up, the boys turn to their favorite game, "Who Can Act Straight the Longest?" Too bad the film makers couldn't secure the rights to the corny and soulful Carpenters songs that figure so appropriately in the screenplay. The soundtrack settles for Carpenters knockoffs, but a movie that's the real thing should have had access to the real thing as well. Among the cast are Timothy tr I 'vi'l s.zL-zx9 It rr THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB: A ROMANTIC COMEDY. With Dean Cain.

Andrew Keegan, Nia Long. John Mahoney. Written and directed by Greg Berlanti. At Empire 25. Chelsea Cinemas and Quad Cinemas.

Running time: 94 mins. Rated Language, drug use, sexual content. Fithout the fanfare and self-con- 1 sciousness of "Philadelphia," without the safe absurdities of "In Cain (I.) and Keegan Out," new ground is broken by "The Broken Hearts Club." It's the first mainstream gay movie that feels totally comfortable in its shoes. Writer-director Greg Berlanti has achieved such perfect pitch with his ensemble cast that "The Broken Hearts Club" is not a gay movie at all, even though the central male characters cruise the gym bunnies of West Hollywood and wonder why they can't settle down with a nice boy and his six-pack. In a cross between "Diner" and mid-career Woody Allen, the friends breezily philosophize about their existential dilem- Olyphant as a pretty boy afraid to look deeper within himself, Dean Cain (of TVs "Lois and as a gorgeous narcissist ripe for ego deflation and Nia Long as a lesbian who wants to have a baby via a sperm donor she loathes.

At one gripe session, the pals complain about the role models at their disposal in the cinema: "Noble, suffering AIDS victims and stylish confidants to lovelorn women." They ponder how great it would be if there were a movie about ordinary gay guys. Now, there is one. r- ma how to have a meaningful relationship in a world where superficiality is the holy grail. Each character is drawn well enough to make you care about his particular dilemma the too-handsome one, the not-handsome-enough one, the one who doesn't recognize his own good fortune, the commitment-phobe, etc. What unites them runs as deep as true friendship and as shallow as a shared interest in a self-help book called "Love, Here I Am.".