To Sir With Hoosiers

Rating: 4/10 (10 March 2007)

Some reviewer here wrote that this movie was not about basketball, but about discipline, respect, etc. Well, I got news for ya, it's about basketball! Samuel L. Jackson, despite his considerable gifts, is no Sidney Poitier. Nor is he a Gene Hackman. Yet, this movie combines "To Sir With Love" with "Hoosiers" with blatant banditry. Jackson is never quite sympathetic enough, quite human enough, for the viewer to care about, and the boys on the team come off like a gang of thug wannabees.
The movie seems to play fast and loose with time. Grades are brought up in, apparently, a day or so, thousands of push-ups are done in brief hours. There is a tawdry back-story about the inevitable pregnancy of a player's girlfriend, idiotic and unreasonable parents and school officials (Carter bears a lot of resemblance to Joe Clark, "Lean On Me"). There was (for me) a lot of difficulty telling the boys apart or connecting them with their names.
An irritating undercurrent in this movie is the understanding that one one either goes to college or to prison. There is apparently no room in this society for plumbers, electricians, chefs, soldiers, ... just grads and inmates.
All in all, this is not a terrible movie. However, had I paid $9.00 to see it in a theater, I'd have felt robbed.