Undefeated (2011)
Directed by Daniel Lindsay
Set against the backdrop of a high school football season, Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin’s documentary UNDEFEATED is an intimate chronicle of three underprivileged student-athletes from inner-city Memphis and the volunteer coach trying to help them beat the odds on and off the field. For players and coaches alike, the season will be not only about winning games — it will be about how they grapple with the unforeseeable events that are part of football and part of life.
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What critics compared Undefeated to
Picked up by the Weinstein Company out of the SXSW Film Festival earlier this year, this intimately observed film combines elements of sports docs like Hoop Dreams with real-life plot lines that echo those of Friday Night Lights and The Blind Side.
Even though familiar themes abound, as depicted in melodramas like "Friday Night Lights" or The Blind Side, Undefeated is still inspiring and very emotional.
Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin's extraordinary documentary Undefeated follows them through what looks like a championship season, resulting in something akin to a non-fiction Friday Night Lights--both in terms of subject matter and emotional weight.
Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin’s Oscar winning documentary Undefeated is one of the best I’ve seen in some time, and as far as American Football flicks go, it’s the closest to touching the greatness of H.G. Bissinger’s tome Friday Night Lights and Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side .
The “Friday Night Lights” motto wonderfully, movingly comes to life in the Oscar-winning story of Coach Bill Courtney and Manassas High School, an underfunded Memphis school whose football program lost its luster as the town lost jobs following the closing of a Firestone plant.
This is well-traveled ground, after all, with a steady stream of narrative variations, from Remember the Titans and We Are Marshall to Friday Night Lights and The Blind Side.