Quite enjoyable even if it is corny and rather derivative

Rating: Null/10 (13 February 2005)

When segregation comes to an end TC Williams High School is created by the combination of an all-black school with an all-white school and, for political reasons, the white head coach Bill Yoast is replaced by black coach Herman Boone. This obviously causes a lot of conflict within he team and it is only to protect his white players that Yoast decides to stay on as the defensive coach. When the players go to training camp the conflicts are everywhere and Boone's first job is to bring the team together.
Usually when movie premieres come onto terrestrial television they are trailed big time and are put in plum spots; so when this film was simply dumped into the daytime schedules at Christmas time I feared the worst and, for that reason, didn't get round to watching it until February. As with many films, there is plenty of good in it but it is dented a bit by its weaknesses. As you would expect it to be, this is a simple story of race conflict being resolved within a group of youths who then become a winning team and, in the telling, it doesn't do anything out of the ordinary. Now that is not to look down on the real story behind the film but the film itself cannot help but spoil it by always going for the easy clichés, the simple and corny bonding moments that summarise a difficult journey and, whenever possible, sticking in some mighty, swelling music to make sure we all understand how emotional that particular moment is.
What this does is reduces the true story of a turbulent time to the level of melodrama and, while I admit it would have been hard to do it any other way, it cannot help but damage the film a little. However despite this it is still quite enjoyable and those that can forgive its self-indulgence will find much to like about it. However for me it was hard to get past the corn and I was only able to see an average sports movie with a core of a "lets understand each other" storyline. The sports stuff is OK but never gripping and the characters are a touch too generic to be really involving. It is fortunate then that the performances are mainly reasonably good, certain good enough to keep the film lively and watchable. Washington delivers a good performance even if it lacks any subtlety or edge to it; likewise Patton is right out of the playbook and does what is expected of him. The support cast have some good performances and some corny performances but generally they all do well enough to match the tone of the film.
Overall this is an OK film that is quite enjoyable but doesn't do anything special. While having enough to involve and just about entertain, the film still suffers from being overly melodramatic, corny and loaded with moments that come across as rather clichéd. If you can accept this then it is a good film, otherwise it is just an OK one that will grate on you occasionally.