Not a Slam Dunk

Rating: 8/10 (27 February 2006)

Racial prejudice is the pariah of our society. It permeates every avenue to making the world a fair place to live. It's not just American society either. It's in the North, the South, and everywhere overseas. Prejudice is counterproductive and ugly. This movie sort of pretends to rise above it. It's a feel good movie in some respects. While racism is at the center of the film, the answers are just a little too pat. It's just a little too easy. Granted, it's just a movie, but I wish it got a little more down and dirty. A trip to a training camp out of town and a lecture on the Gettysburg battlefield just wouldn't do it. Some of these kids are going to hold onto stuff their parents have driven into them a lot longer than this. Now all that said, I still enjoyed the film. The characterizations of Coach Boone and Coach Yoast are well drawn. They are both good men who love their players. They are both excellent role models. And the players and the game scenes are believable (although I am getting tired of every hit on the field sounding like a Buick hitting a concrete wall--this is happening in most football movies). The growth of Gary and the Rev is nicely done and we hope that it really happened that way. I enjoyed the two white guys who just kind of matter of factly walked into practice--Sunshine and Louis--who just wanted to play football. There are some kids out there who don't think about race very much. They are pretty naive, but they are charming. I loved when Louis hugged Coach Boone and told him he was going to college. That's a nice touch.
I could go on, but others have said so much already. It's a good action movie with nice human characters. It just gets a little simplistic at times and it needs to answer for that.