Sports movies are the great bastion of movie clichés. You can always expect the losers to come together and become losers, stirring locker room speeches, hated rivals developing respect for one another, and of course winning the big game at the last second. I’m pleased to say that Coach Carter actually misses one of those.
This movie is based on the real Coach Carter, who had the audacity to lockout his own team when they failed to keep their grades up. Understandably, Carter was verbally abused, ridiculed in the press and eventually stabbed in the back by the school board. Imagine, the nerve of the man to demand standards of academic achievement be met and sustained. How could he not understand that in this country, sports are regarded above all else and that the term student athlete is a quaint term that should never be taken as meaning that these kids should ever learn anything more challenging than how to handle a ball. Thankfully that fellow was put in his place by the appropriately shortsighted board members who weren’t about to stand for someone trying to raise the level of education or god help us, the standard of living. Next thing you know, people will be finding respect for themselves. That could lead to a shortage of trash talking ego driven athletes. Imagine the horror of a world without the likes of Terrell Owens. Who will our children look to when they need to learn the fine art of a self-congratulatory victory dance for every little play in a game? Where will they get the concept of holding out for a new contract no matter how many millions of dollars a year they already make? If there is an outbreak of decency and respectful behavior, sports as we know it might come to an end. Think of the children damn it!
Yeah, there’s a movie to talk about too. Samuel L. Jackson stars as the title character and he is of course a perfect choice for the role. He has that commanding screen presence that you need for a guy who is going to get a collection of borderline street thugs to shape up and act like decent human beings. Give the director and writer credit for not going to overboard on the transformation Carter slowly works on these kids. He had a hardnosed approach and just enough success in the world to know what these kids could do if they gave themselves a bit of a chance. The shortsighted teachers and parents are a bit harder to understand, so it would have been nice to get a bit more from them. If the teacher in the movie who complains that Carter’s requested status reports on his players is too much work, and that he should let the teachers get on with the job of teaching is based on a real person, that person needs to be fired immediately.
I know exactly squat about basketball but this movie made the game seem relatively interesting and realistic. Perhaps avid fans would not be so kind, but it had me fooled. The cast is pretty good, giving most of the kids a chance to form a real character. Rob Brown played the smartest of the players, which means he has now been typecast, as he was the smart basketball player in Finding Forrester too. Two movies is awfully fast for that to happen, so he’d better act quickly if he hopes to do anything different in the movies.
This is a perfectly serviceable film. It doesn’t offend with the clichés and only slightly overstays its welcome. It has some nice messages for kids and parents alike. I can’t promise to remember much of it in a couple months but for two hours, it wasn’t bad.
- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it is perpetually annoyed that basketball is more popular than hockey.
