My Favourite Samuel L. Jackson Movie

Rating: 7/10 (6 July 2017)

I'm not saying that this is the best film Samuel L. Jackson ever made, or that it's his finest performance. He's been a busy actor with a huge body of work, after all. But I will say that "Coach Carter" is probably my favourite Samuel L. Jackson movie. And his performance as Coach Ken Carter is very good, and the overall story is quite inspiring. It's a hopeful movie to watch; one that promises that things and people can turn around, and that those who could be expected to fall by the wayside can rise to the top - not just in basketball (which is the setting of this movie) but also in life. As Carter, Jackson is playing the coach of the Richmond High School basketball team. It's an inner city school that graduates only 50% of its students, few of whom actually go on to college. The basketball team is made up of a bunch of boys who couldn't care less about school, who get into trouble outside school and who lose over and over on the court. Carter comes in and lays down the law, expecting student athletes to be students first and athletes second - trying to teach them how to be winners, not only on the court but off. Along the way he faces opposition from the players themselves, their parents, their teachers, the principal and the school board - but he stands up straight, stares his detractors down and shuts down the basketball program (after having led the team to 16 straight wins) because not enough of the players are keeping up their academic end of the bargain. Ultimately he takes this group of boys - who could have just been written off as losers - to the state championship tournament, and sees many of them go to college and progress into successful lives.
That's the story. It's inspiring. It's also (to be honest) entirely formulaic. It's a formula that works - which is why it's been used repeatedly for decades - but it's still a formula: Principal/Teacher/Coach takes over troubled School/Classroom/Team, gets tough and turns everything around. Usually (as here) the story is based on true events - making it even more inspiring. But it is still a formula - there's a predictability to this. You've seen it before, even if you haven't seen the movie before. But the performances from Jackson and the young actors who played the members of the team (and from Ashanti, who played Kyra, the girlfriend of one of the players) does manage to keep it seeming fresh and alive at the same time.
Sure you can quibble about the timeline being off (for example, Carter took over the team in 1997 and the year of the lockout was 1999, not just a few weeks after he became coach) but chalk those things up to dramatic license. The basics are accurate enough, and the movie's an inspiring, feel-good story about a man who made a difference in a lot of young lives. Who can really argue with that? (7/10)