'Carter' Coached By Formula

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2005)

Coach Carter ***/*****
There have been a slew of sports stories to hit the multiplex in the last few years. They all have enough in common that we get tired of them yet they each have their own "thing" that makes them unique enough that we go to see them just to see what this story has that the others didn't. The inspirational, uplifting, based on a true story sports tales are a dime a dozen because, essentially, every athlete is one of these stories. What makes the boys of Friday Nigh Lights any different that your local high school football team? What makes coach Carter's players any different than any other teenage boys?
In the latest version of 'talented players with bad coach get good coach and start winning', Samuel L. Jackson plays coach Cater who comes to coach at his old high school where more kids end up in prison that end up with college diplomas. He is on a mission not only to improve the game record for the basketball team but to also improve the academic standing of his players. The boys live in a predominantly poor black neighborhood and all the stereotypes of this lifestyle show up to bat. Boy who's girlfriend is pregnant, the tough guy who hangs with his older cousin and gets into trouble although the camera makes it painfully obvious that he will be "saved" in the end and the one who tries to be that "savior".
Perhaps the movie shouldn't be ridiculed for following formula. After all, that is what sells and if movies didn't make back their costs, we'd have to find new ways to spend Friday nights. But the problem with formula is that we get tired of it when it's over used and man oh man is this formula getting old. It's almost akin to watching the day in life of anybody played before your eyes over and over and over again. You know who is going to say what, when and why and after a while you stop caring. The inspirational speeches coaches give at halftime of the pivotal game don't actually exist, you know.
But, like romantic comedies, horror and thriller films, when formula is twisted in some way or another, the movies are better than those that never had a pattern to work with in. The Sixth Sense is the classic horror film with a twist. It just happened to be such a good twist that it essentially became its own sub-genre of thriller films. A film like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is just a romantic comedy. It's justbackwardsand sideways. Whatever. The point is that it's a distorted version of what we're used to and, as a result, it has become a film with a growing fan base that is loyal to the extent that they might as well be called a cult.
Coach Carter, although not exactly revolutionary in the ways these two films are, had a chance to be. There is an entire sub-plot devoted to the academic progress of the basketball players. "They're student athletes. Student comes first." The point where this story is wrapped up also coincides with an ending of sorts to the athlete story. If, at this point, the filmmakers had chosen to end the film, they would have created a story more about the student than the athlete, making them not just another based on a true story sports film.