Samuel L. Jackson's depiction of the true story of Coach Ken Carter ensues.

Rating: Null/10 (14 January 2005)

Immediately after being introduced as the new head coach, Coach Carter informs the players that respect and discipline will be required. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with some of the guys. After all, they were used to getting away with everything. But that's the attitude that resulted in only four wins the previous season. So instead of accepting disrespect, Carter forces a player to leave the gym. Two of his slacker friends follow him.
When one of the remaining players speaks up and complains that they just lost their two highest scorers from last season, Carter replies, "Well then will have two new highest scorers this season." That's Coach Carter. He took the reigns of a team of underachievers and pushed them to be better than average. But to be more than average, you have to accept the responsibility of a certain amount of work and effort. Don't want to accept your responsibilities? That's nothing that 1000 push-ups and 500 suicides won't cure.
There's no doubt that some people just don't have it in them to play for a coach like that. I've been there, and a lot of the time you absolutely hate the coach. "Come on, coach, what do you mean we have to run stairs for 10 minutes?? We just had a 2 1/2 hour wrestling practice!" We ended up running stairs for 20 minutes, and that was the last time any of us complained. We hated the coach at that moment, but he got our attention, and more importantly, he got his point across.
Achieving excellence is never easy, whether it be in the sports arena or in the classroom. Coach Carter's team was doing great on the basketball court, starting off the season on a huge win streak. But problems in the classroom brought everything to a halt. Bye bye sunshine.
Once Carter received progress reports from the teachers (he had to twist arms to do it), the bad news was several of his players were failing classes. They all signed contracts to maintain a 2.3 GPA. They didn't maintain the GPA. So what happened? Carter locked the gym, closed practice, and said all games would be forfeited until the conditions of the contracts were met.
Great! It's about time a coach took a stand like that! I guess parents, school board members, and the community all rallied around the coach and his brave stand, right? Nope. Parents and the rest of the community were only concerned with trying to win a state championship. In fact, the parents were in such an uproar that they demanded that Coach Carter be fired.
The school board cowardly voted to end the lockout, and Coach Carter said that he would quit. But the team rallied around him, and said they wouldn't play until everybody met his requirements.
Samuel L. Jackson is, no surprise, perfect as Coach Carter. You wanna scare a couple of players straight? Just have Samuel L. stare 'em straight in the eyes for about 5 minutes. Jackson is so convincing as a disciplinarian that I stood up at one point during the movie and started running suicides. The taunts of, "Look at that idiot running in the theater" and "Sit down! Your stupid pants are ruffling and making too much noise" didn't bother me. I knew Coach Carter would be proud.
By no means is this movie a masterpiece. The main drawback is that I wasn't enthralled with all the little subplots. The one side story with the player being involved with dealing drugs worked well because it made sense within the context of the movie. But I could've done without Ashanti and her basketball-playing boyfriend talking and whining and talking about her unplanned pregnancy. OK, fine, yeah, that stuff happens all the time in the ghetto, but that doesn't mean it makes for compelling viewing. I'd rather see 10 more minutes of Jackson threatening to break somebody's face than 10 minutes of a school dance.
As a result of the subplots, some people might get a little restless with the 136 minute running time. I'll probably watch this again one day on DVD, but when I do I'll fast forward through all the scenes dealing with Ashanti and her pregnancy. Yeah, yeah, human interest, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, it was of no interest to THIS human, so there you go.
Also, the "I came to teach boys, and you became men" inspirational clichés start to hit hyper drive as the movie winds down. You'll probably roll your eyes at least twice, and you might want to keep a plastic yellow bucket handy in case your gag reflex kicks in. But hey, it's forgivable.
This is a true story (with some poetic license exercised) that needs to be heard. Basketball is a privilege. Many amateur athletes think they can play professional sports, but Coach Carter knew differently. That's why he still believed in the STUDENT-athlete. In his own words, "On the streets and public basketball courts in Richmond and any other city in America, you see the broken dreams of former high school legends who got left behind by life. And I was just not going to let that happen to these boys." Now if you'll excuse me, I've got 50 more push-ups and 10 suicides to do.
Rating: 4 (out of 5)