The Unseen Movie Review

Coach Carter

The world of college basketball is a mysterious one for anyone who isn’t American. Why would such a large chunk of the US population get so excited about what is effectively the American equivalent of school football matches? After all, professional basketball is weird enough - where are the goalposts? What’s with all that running backwards and forwards?

This is based on the true story of a High School basketball coach (played here by Samuel L Jackson) who, in 1999, refused to let his ream of typically tough-minded yet athletically talented brats compete unless they did well academically. Now, bearing in mind that the US is a country where even the best universities – let alone schools – frequently offer full scholarships to incredibly dense people purely to ensure that their sports teams do well, you can start to see how that might be a problem. Which is more important, academic work or athletic pursuits, long-term or temporary success?

The message is simple, yet worth repeating: reminded by the principle that "You and I both know that this basketball season will be the highlight of their lives," Jackson’s coach pointedly replies, "I think that's the problem, don't you?" It’s a sentimental call to aspire to bigger and better things, to try your hardest even at the things you aren’t any good at in the hopes of bettering yourself and the lives of those around you.

This is basically one of those films about that inspirational brand of teacher, of which Mr Chips is probably the prime example, in which sceptical students and parents take a while to work out that this person is actually genuinely trying to do the best for their young charges. Thanks in part to the “urban” MTV feel, it is very reminiscent of the 1995 Michelle Pfeiffer flick Dangerous Minds, or even of the previous Samuel L Jackson as teacher movie, 1997’s One Eight Seven.

Coming as it does from MTV Films, you’d probably expect some kind of fast-edited, achingly contemporary affair. It doesn’t disappoint, with a multiracial team of youngsters fully geed up with hip hop speak, a side role for R’n’B star Ashanti, and one of those soundtracks which seems to be trying just a tad too hard to be cool.

But despite all the hip hop speak, “street” macho nonsense and the MTV tag, this is a deeply old fashioned film. Rather than simply being based on a true story, it almost plays like a modernised remake of the 1938 classic Boys Town, in which Spencer Tracey’s Catholic priest shows young tearaway Mickey Rooney the error of his ways.

Add to that some cliché-ridden sport scenes, complete with final-second winning shots and the like, it would be easy to get the impression that, despite the “true story” angle, this is a rather unoriginal attempt at a plot that has been covered many times before. But, thanks almost entirely to the ever-watchable Jackson, this is an effective stab at the genre, and makes for an entertaining – if largely predictable – couple of hours.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM