Coach Carter (2005)
Directed by Thomas Carter
Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.
21 connections found
View:
21 films that influenced Coach Carter
What critics say influenced Coach Carter
Based on a real life coach, also named Ken Carter (who's been hitting talk shows with Jackson to promote the film), Carter takes an approach that's part Lean on Me meets Hoosiers, part Stand and Deliver meets Friday Night Lights, and okay, maybe a little White Shadow, too.
You've seen "Coach Carter" before in the guise of such films as "Hoosiers," "Remember the Titans" and "Lean on Me," or the less notable "The Replacements" or "Drumline."
As if timed to counteract these days of "basketbrawl" and snipes at Hollywood morality, along comes "Coach Carter," a true story, feel-good parable and a respectable, uplifting descendent of "To Sir, With Love" and "Lean On Me."
Based on the story of an actual Richmond, Calif., high school basketball coach who benched his undefeated team until some of its members got their grades up, "Coach Carter" falls squarely in the group-Pygmalion tradition established by Sidney Poitier in "To Sir, With Love" and faithfully carried on by Morgan Freeman in "Lean on Me," Michelle Pfeiffer in "Dangerous Minds," as well as countless others, in which a lone-educator-who-cares rides into the mean streets of town to battle complacent parents, craven bureaucrats, low expectations and moribund systems, and single-handedly save the school day.
We also hear loud echoes from 1989's Lean on Me (school principal Joe Clark hanging tough against hoods).
This one seems cobbled together from the most enjoyable parts of Lean on Me, Hoosiers, and Remember the Titans -- with a generous drop of Dead Poets Society thrown in towards the end.
It's a trick, admittedly, to show people learning math though Stand and Deliver (1988) made feisty drama out of it.
Based on a real life coach, also named Ken Carter (who's been hitting talk shows with Jackson to promote the film), Carter takes an approach that's part Lean on Me meets Hoosiers, part Stand and Deliver meets Friday Night Lights, and okay, maybe a little White Shadow, too.
But screenwriters Mark Schwahn and John Gatins continually compromise the story's real-world bite by recycling scenes and situations from other coach-team weepies (Hoosiers et al) and teacher-student inspirationals (Stand and Deliver et al).
But while the movie's motivational message is patently praiseworthy, the game it runs across the screen, for well over two hours, is so full of familiar moves from the likes of "Stand and Deliver," "Hoosiers" and "Remember the Titans" that it finally induces more fidgeting than cheers.
While Jackson is nowhere near the absurd caricature played by Morgan Freeman in the hilariously over-the-top "Lean on Me," Edward James Olmos (whose dedicated math teacher in "Stand and Deliver" was a sly, subversively schlubby revelation) has nothing to worry about.
It's Stand and Deliver and Bad News Bears in flagrante delecto.
Based on a real life coach, also named Ken Carter (who's been hitting talk shows with Jackson to promote the film), Carter takes an approach that's part Lean on Me meets Hoosiers, part Stand and Deliver meets Friday Night Lights, and okay, maybe a little White Shadow, too.
"Coach Carter," like "Friday Night Lights," goes beyond the standard sports movie playbook to examine the consequences of short-sightedness and the perils of pinning all your hopes on one uncertain dream.
The hoops scenes, filmed in the hyperkinetic, handheld style of "Friday Night Lights," take us inside the action on the court.
See, this is kinda the anti Friday Night Lights , which glorified the idea that high…
The "real life" underdog story has recently run through ice hockey (Miracle) and football (Friday Night Lights).
You've seen all this before, and not just in Miracle and Friday Night Lights.
These days, Carter is best known as an Emmy-winning TV director ("Don King: Only in America") who scored a big-screen breakthough in 2001 with "Save the Last Dance," another teen-themed drama with a strong follow-your-heart message.
Before director Thomas Carter moved behind the camera (for a career that includes the worthy Save the Last Dance and Don King: Only in America), he acted in the '70s tube classic The White Shadow.
Advertisement
Based on the story of an actual Richmond, Calif., high school basketball coach who benched his undefeated team until some of its members got their grades up, "Coach Carter" falls squarely in the group-Pygmalion tradition established by Sidney Poitier in "To Sir, With Love" and faithfully carried on by Morgan Freeman in "Lean on Me," Michelle Pfeiffer in "Dangerous Minds," as well as countless others, in which a lone-educator-who-cares rides into the mean streets of town to battle complacent parents, craven bureaucrats, low expectations and moribund systems, and single-handedly save the school day.
In Dangerous Minds, ex-Marine Michelle Pfeiffer earned her "unteachable" brood's undivided attention with some well-aimed karate chops.
Morgan Freeman used a Louisville Slugger to scare straight the students in "Lean on Me." Michelle Pfeiffer donned a leather jacket and busted out some goofy kung fu to prove to a class of ruffians that she was down with them in "Dangerous Minds."
Holding all this commotion together, Jackson screams, sneers, and speechifies his way through a performance that's somehow equal parts George C. Scott in Patton and Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.
From Coach Carter to Lean on Me to Dangerous Minds to Mr. Holland's Opus, it's a pretty standard sub-genre that seems to add a few new titles every year.
So there will be the athlete/students broken down into types to save time and energy on fleshing out the extended supporting cast, and there will be the valiant Dead Poets Society teacher who so rouses his/her hangdog students that they will eventually mass in a public show of support (standing on desks, running after ambulances, biking after cabs) when The Man (the school administration, the angry backwoods community) inevitably cracks down.
Holding all this commotion together, Jackson screams, sneers, and speechifies his way through a performance that's somehow equal parts George C. Scott in Patton and Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.
This one seems cobbled together from the most enjoyable parts of Lean on Me, Hoosiers, and Remember the Titans -- with a generous drop of Dead Poets Society thrown in towards the end.
Although the film embraces the usual clichés associated with this kind of movie (the Dead Poets Society "O Captain, My Captain" Moment is present and correct, for example), it manages to avoid some of the more obvious ones: for example, in the gang member subplot, someone does get shot, but it's not the person you expect and also there's no emotional father/son conflict or issues of any kind.
After marking his territory by beating up a mouthy punk, he puts his misfit team through a series of gruelling drills (Heartbreak Ridge, The Dirty Dozen, Stripes) to whip them into shape.
Advertisement
It's a good premise, because it sets up the one righteous man against the many, High Noon-style, as it cuts deep into contemporary issues - the failure of American education, the way sport feeds on poverty, the lack of choices for boys and girls in these communities.
He's also about as warm and cuddly as R. Lee Ermey's drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.