Coach Carter Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)January 18th, 2005
COACH CARTER
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Paramount Pictures/ MTV Films
Grade: B-
Directed by: Thomas Carter
Written by: Mark Schwahn, John Gatins, inspired by the life of Ken Carter
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Ri'chard, Rob Brown, Debbi Morgan, Ashanti, Rick Gonzalez, Antwon Tanner, Nana Gbewonyo, Channing Tatum, Texas Battle, Denise Dowse Screened at: Loews 34th St., NYC, 1/11/05
"But the basketball season will be the high point of their lives," insists the principal (Denise Dowse) of a public high school which serves a California ghetto. "Isn't that the problem?" insists Coach Carter (Samuel L. Jackson). Yes indeedy. There's something wrong when a school has such low aspirations for its students that it actually brags about a sport's being the major aspect of the students' lives. It's not always that a coach can overrule the head of the school and actually cancel a game and practice sessions by putting a chain and a lock on the gymnasium door because his team was not up to snuff academically. But remember who this coach is: he's Ken Carter, and Ken Carter is a real person who achieved quite a bit in his day as the school's basketball coach. Carter actually made achievers out of this mostly African-American ensemble of dribblers and shooters, giving them the pride of kids who could solve theorems as well as they could shoot on the court and ultimately, unlike so many of today's youngsters in secondary school, they could probably find the United States on a world map.
"Coach Carter" is better than it should be, mostly a re-tread of just about every sports movie from "The Babe Ruth Story" through "Waterboy" and beyond. You won't find the wit or special charm of Bernie Mac's performance in "Mr 3000," but here it is only January, the month that usually gets the dregs of studio output, and already we have an award-winning performance. Samuel L. Jackson performs in the role of the kind of coach I wish I had when I was on my high-school's rifle team: I can't remember a single teacher who could have inspired me in quite the way that Jackson would have done. Then again, during my thirty-two years of teaching high school, I can't say I ran across anyone with the spirit of Jackson's Coach Carter. A movie like this is, however, based on real events, is gussied up by an intrusive sound track filled with thirty-nine songs–none of which existing during the neolithic age of my own school daze. And how come the students were doing cha- cha, Samba and fox trot at the school dance?
"Coach Carter" is directed by Thomas Carter (no relation), a fellow whose credentials come largely from the TV world where he received an Emmy for "Don King: Only in America" and for episodes of "Equal Justice"–as well as piloting films like "Swing Kids," "Metro," and "Save the Last Dance" This film focuses on a guy who returns to Richmond High School where he already has street creds for the hoop after being most valuable player in that institution some decades before. It's now 1998, the basketball team had won only four games in the previous season, and academically the boys are in the pits. No-one expects them to come away with more than a 2.0 average (that's a straight C) and even getting them to come to class, given the distractions of their girlfriends (one of whom is pregnant from a player) and the sale of drugs on the street, is a monumental task
After insisting that the team members–all avid players who'd do almost anything to wear the varsity letters of RHS–sign contracts pledging to go to class and maintain a 2.3 average (a big deal to most of them apparently)–Carter turns in an undefeated season simply by keeping them running laps called suicides, doing push ups, getting up a good defense and keeping control of the game. Just when he's ready to take home all the laurels for an incredible season, he discovers that some of the boys have violated their contract by missing classes which gives them grades of incomplete, and failing in their courses. He penalizes the entire squad (We're a TEAM") by padlocking the door, to the consternation of the boys, their parents, and their teachers. Everyone on the street or in a car hates the guy for taking away what until then has been the boys' sole satisfaction from school..
Now, it's pretty difficult to believe that the chaining down of the gym would draw not only the protests of parents and administrators but would cause some fifteen or twenty networks NATIONALLY to descend on the school to interview the coach, but according to the press notes, this is reality. I mean, wow, we're talking not about the N.B.A. or the Notre Dame football squad, but a low-rated high school tucked away in a run-down urban area!
The boys must have been coached for this movie in much the way that Carter gets them into shape for their games. Months of rehearsals resulted in shaping up a nice bunch, acting just fine, including especially Rick Gonzalez in the role of Timo Cruz–a guy who gave the coach attitude from the get-go and was virtually slammed into the wall when he aimed a blow at the coach's head; and Ashanti, in real life a soloist who has reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, who plays the pregnant girlfriend who wants to keep the baby.
The usual antics are in play: the team, out of town in San Francisco, hooks up with some rich suburban kids, getting in trouble with a suburbanite's parents and the coach; a drug dealer gets shot by two guys who probably find him on their turf. But nobody in the school gets killed. Instead, Jackson, in yet another of his many suits and garish ties, sums up the picture: "You came to me as boys, and you're leaving as men," a speech that could get some unintentional laughs from some of the more cynical members of the audience.
Rated PG-13. 140 minutes. © 2005 by Harvey Karten
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