To the baseline!

Coach Carter (2005)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 136 minutes

Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Ashanti, Rob Brown, Rick Gonzalez, Nana Gbewonyo, Robert Ri’chard, Antwon Tanner, Channing Tatum

Director: Thomas Carter

Plot: Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) is the new coach at Richmond High School. He is a former basketball star at Richmond High and George Mason University. He doesn’t like the n-word, loves to make his team run suicides, names his offensive and defensive strategies after women in his life, and doesn’t approve of trash talking/taunting. The team he inherits is filled with the usual suspects: Kenyon (Rob Brown) got his girlfriend Kyra (Ashanti) pregnant, Cruz (Rick Gonzalez) deals drugs, Junior (Nana Gbewonyo) can’t read ... I think, Damien (Robert Ri’chard) is the coach’s son, Worm (Antwon Tanner) is popular with the ladies ... I guess, and Lyle (Channing Tatum) is ... white! The team is bad, they don’t like each other, and they don’t go to class. Enter Coach Carter and cue the team’s turnaround. (Haha ... turnaround ... I just made an unintentional basketball reference ... I rule!)

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: 2 basketballs. 1 for Samuel L. Jackson being in the movie and 1 for my awesome, possibly made-up quote.

Tournament seed: 10-12—movie is a sleeper, primed to upset a higher seed. Don’t be surprised if other people jump on the bandwagon when the brackets are released. It could play its way into the sweet 16.

I want to set the tone for this review early, so I am going to do something different; instead of ending with my favorite quote, I will start with it. Coach is a little irritated with his team, so he lets them have it:

Coach Carter: “I have had it with you mother-fuckin’ kids on this mother-fuckin’ team!”*

Ok, on with the review. I knew I was in for a treat when the opening of the movie revealed it was an MTV film. The soundtrack was filled with artists I can’t tell apart (Chingy, Common, Faith Evans, Kanye West, Lil Scrappy). Some guy from a rival school named Ty Crane is billed as the next LeBron James (so it was no surprise when the character thought he was the best and talked a lot of trash and became lazy as the game went on). Samuel L. Jackson was pretty solid as an “angry yet caring” coach. The team’s initial thought of him was, “He’s a country church n****r.” Coach doesn’t like that label, so he starts laying down the law, which causes the top 2 scorers from the previous year to quit. Many basketball-related clichés are soon to follow: “Practice starts at 3:00, but if you are not there by 2:55 that means you’re late”, “The losing stops now”, “I’m not a teacher, I’m the new basketball coach”, and “Basketball is a privilege”. And he kept asking the team “What’s your deepest fear?” Oh, and it didn’t end there; the high school students all said shit a lot and wore Raiders hats, the basketball action was all dunks and 3-point shots, and the high school dance was more like a strip club. But just when you think the team is headed nowhere, they come together to get a player back on the team, and they win the Bayhill Tournament after coming back from 6 points down with 20 seconds left in the game. Yay, this team is going all the way ... until they sneak out to party with the Bayhill girls and Coach gets their progress reports and sees that several players are failing classes. So Coach decides to lock out the team until they meet their academic goals. The team is forced to forfeit a game (which is their first loss of the season), and the town does not like it. Coach’s decision starts to make national headlines (Bob Costas does a piece on TV about it), but he sticks to his plan because he feels “the school is set up to make the students fail” ... or something. The biggest game of the year against Freemont is cancelled and Renny (Cruz’s cousin ... maybe) gets shot. This whole season is falling apart. The town wants to vote to have Coach removed from the team and end the lockout. Coach says he will quit if the lockout is ended. The school board votes 4-2 to end the lockout and the team takes the court ... not to play, but to learn: “They can cut the chain off the door but they can’t make us play.” Cruz quotes ... someone, and the team finds out they are passing all their classes so it’s time to play ball! Kenyon finds out Kyra had an abortion, but he seems pretty cool about it and tells her he loves her, and then celebrates with his team as they find out they made the state tournament and will face Ty Crane (now hyped as the future NBA #1 draft pick) and the mighty St. Francis team. As they take the floor they do a sweet slow-motion walk, and then they proceed to get behind by 15 points in the third quarter. But Coach gives the “Pedal to the metal” speech, and they make a comeback and trail by only 1 with 23.2 seconds left. Coach then gives the “Take what’s yours” speech and Junior scores to put the team up by 1. But the excitement is short lived because Ty receives a long pass and scores at the buzzer. Coach then gives the “Played like champions” speech and the team then does a “Rich-what/Rich-mond!” chant.

I guess the movie is based on a true story, so it was cool to find out that Junior attends San Jose State University, Lyle attends San Diego State University, Cruz attends Humboldt State University, Worm attends San Francisco State University, Kenyon attends Sacramento State University, and Damien breaks the Richmond High School’s scoring and assist records and attends the US Military Academy.

*I may have made this up because there wasn’t an awesome quote in the movie ... or maybe I didn’t???