letting a thousand clichés bloom

Rating: Null/10 (4 February 2005)

How is it that a film based on a true story can wind up seeming more like other movies than like real life? That is the question you may well find yourself asking during "Coach Carter," a two-for-the-price-of-one social drama that combines the clichés of the super teacher saga with those of the underdog sports story.
Ken Carter was a small business owner who agreed to coach a losing high school basketball team in a rundown section of Richmond, California. What Carter discovered when he arrived on the scene was that the team was little more than an undisciplined rabble, its troubled players as unserious about life off the court as on. Through a tough-love regimen of high scholastic standards and grueling training, Carter managed to turn a motley group of antisocial delinquents into not only a championship team, but upstanding citizens and college-bound students as well. Despite initial opposition from both the players and the community, Carter eventually earned the respect and admiration of all. And if this plot synopsis doesn't conjure up memories of "The Blackboard Jungle," "To Sir, With Love," "Up the Down Staircase," "The Bad News Bears," "Dead Poets' Society," "Stand and Deliver," "The Mighty Ducks," "Dangerous Minds," "Mona Lisa Smiles" and "Miracle," then you really haven't spent much time at the movies.
Although there isn't a single unpredictable moment in the entire film, excellent performances from Samuel L. Jackson and a cast of gifted young actors elevate the film to a level higher than one could reasonably expect. Jackson provides such a strong, solid center for the story that it's hard not to be uplifted by all his inspirational words of wisdom even though we know that we are being shamelessly manipulated every step of the way. The film makes the pertinent, if not exactly earth shattering, point that low expectations in the academic arena lead only to substandard results. The opposition Carter receives from the community to his unconventional, though highly effective methods, provides some of the true drama of the piece.
"Coach Carter" is way too long and doesn't show us much that we haven't seen countless times before, yet it's hard to get mad at any film whose intentions are as upstanding and noble as they are here. Don't go in expecting too much and you might get more out of it.