Rims Out!

Rating: 6/10 (21 November 2018)

It's a sports movie that presses all the normal sports movie buttons, right through to the emotive climax. Down and out underperforming school basketball team from a poor socio-economic area, is led to salvation (in more ways than one) through the concerted efforts of a charismatic coach, who once attended the same school.
Oddly what we don't get in a two and a quarter hour "biographical" movie called Coach Carter, is to learn much about the man himself ... Ken Carter. We find out he is a passionate advocate for educational achievement and the chances and choices it can offer those with a will to succeed. We discover a few of the strategies he uses to develop the Richmond Oilers from a position as a lowly rung team to one that can challenge for a schools state championship. In achieving his own goals, unsurprisingly we uncover the fact that he doesn't mind treading on administrative, player and parental toes to attain his ambitions.
But that's about it. Yes he has a son called Damien who was also a very skilful player and played for the Oilers. He has some sort of retail business in Richmond and he has a loving wife whose name I'm not sure we even learn by the end of the film, she gets such little screen time. He is wonderfully played by the always distinguished Samuel L Jackson, but we find out little of his background, what makes him tick and why he seemingly, so suddenly wants to make a difference with the team and the team's school. His story is sketched so lightly that he just appears to come from nowhere.
Instead much of the running time of this long film explores the lives of some of the team's players and (ironically enough) their families. Apparently (based on the end credits) most are real people, but their stories are similar to what we've seen in any number of similar school/sports/urban teenage films where characters strive to overcome a variety of disadvantages and adversities.
The film has solid production values and the basketball choreography is first rate. But I was personally disappointed that by film's conclusion, the title character standing on the sidelines, calling all the shots and making all the big moves, was himself not fleshed out much past the cipher stage.