Coach Carter (2005) – 4/5

Owed us nothing, but brought the A game

„Coach Carter“ is a production from the United States of America and the only language spoken in here is English of course, but I see that the second production country is Germany, where I originate from, and this does surprise me a lot indeed as I see no indicators where whatsoever why this would (partially) be a German movie. It is a pretty long film at way over two hours and the director is Emmy winner Thomas Carter, but him carrying the same name as the protagonist here is merely a coincidence I think. This is not his only movie linked to athleticism and the other one I am referring to is about dancing. Could make for a decent double feature these two films. The two writers are fairly interesting. Mark Schwahn has not been too prolific and also not active in the last five years. Pity as I liked his penning here and the other writer is John Gatins who became an Oscar nominee for „Flight“ almost a decade later and this nomination came for the screenplay too, which can be said in his case because he has been a fairly prolific actor as well, but in both fields there is also not too much from the last five years. I hope both writers can have a solid comeback eventually. The lead actor here is of course Samuel L. Jackson and this is something you cannot say too often because he is always the kind of guy who plays one of the biggest supporting players and his Oscar nomination also came in the supporting category. Of course, he also should have been nominated for another more recent Tarantino film and actually won I’d say. But that is another story. Sadly, pretty much the only awards attention he scored for his portrayal here came from awards bodies that discriminate against actors because of their skin color.

A bit strange also to see Ashanti nominated for an award here. Her main profession is singing of course, but I guess some were really desperate to make her happen as an actress too. I would say her performance here was okay like everybody else’s, but the only standout was Jackson. Maybe his portrayal was not Oscar-worthy, but I am pretty sure that the actual nominees that year were not (much) better and I totally would have been fine with him getting a nod. If we look at the rest of the cast, it is maybe a bit ironic that the only one from the younger folks who became truly famous is also the only White actor, namely Channing Tatum. The scene between him and Jackson when the latter’s character interrupts Tatum’s and his girl was a bit funny. You will smile here and there while watching this movie, even if the key aspect here is sports drama. Anyway, it is not just Jackson who scored with this film, but I would say the screenplay is even better and pretty creative at times. The approach here is that the team under their new coach stay undefeated indeed until the very end where they lose an extremely close match against a team led by an NBA prospect. There is of course the parallel back to the game at the very beginning when both teams played each other already and it was as one-sided as it gets there. But yeah, normally these films take the approach that the team is weak or even useless at the start and then slowly gets better and starts winning and is almost invincible in the end. The two writers here did it differently and it worked nicely. I do not have many criticisms with this film, but maybe that they simply won’t lose was one that felt not too realistic and given the ending then, I have to take this one back. One that stays, however, is that there were maybe too many close games and the thrills felt a bit for the sake of it, even if I was curious indeed if they could win. However, the first game after the break because of the bad grades was a very one-sided affair too.

Maybe one reason why this film does not include too many young actors who managed a breakthrough afterwards is that one or several of the cast members had to be also at least somewhat gifted in terms of basketball skills. So they cast accordingly. Nana Gbewonyo is an example of that and he plays Junior Battle, the maybe biggest prospect from the team. His mother is played by Octavia Spencer by the way. Who would have expected her to win an Oscar soon? Oh and Denise Dowse, may she rest in peace. Let me say a few words about the film itself, about the key plot, but also about brief occasions where I was really impressed by what they did here: I already mentioned the year 2005 when this film came out and seems as if back then, almost 20 years ago now, maybe more depending on when you come here to read this review of mine, they did not care about including desperate anti-racism message in every film. This helped the movie so much. Look at who kills the boy’s cousin, look at who spits at the protagonist. In the year 2023, those would all be White people to stir up stuff. Here it is not. Instead, it feels realistic. Just take the stats that Black-on-Black killings are infinitely higher in America than White-on-Black killings. I mean it is totally okay to include racism references if you make a film about Malcolm X or so, but they are simply not needed in a sports movie and I am really glad the screenplay here omitted all this.

There is one very specific example that also fits the same description and with that I am referring of course to Jackson’s character’s short speech about the N-word. How it is something that should not be used, also not when Blacks are talking to Blacks, and I could not agree more. Either everybody should be allowed to use it without repercussions or, if it must not be used by some, then it should not be used by anybody. Had the movie been made today, I am positive it would also send a completely different message there sadly, like in the sense of how dare somebody tell Black kids about how they are supposed to talk. Besides, if the word disappeared, people could also not construct racism stories anymore that are circled around said word. But just look at recent trends when there is specific instruction to Black people to not adapt to proper and correct grammar mostly used by Whites and instead stick to their own way of speaking. Who cares if what they say is incorrect!? And I don’t even mean politically incorrect. More like full of errors. How can you support that? And at the same time say you are empathic and tolerant? The absurdity in this concept is so unreal. In other words, you can say that the film was not only ahead of its time, but that it is indeed ahead of our time now even. How many years or (hopefully not) decades this will be the case is something that time will tell us eventually. There are more examples for this being a truly progressive movie and you will recognize them. I must applaud the writers Schwahn and Gatins again for what they came up with here. I guess I will just do some brainstorming now until the end of the review: The sub-plot with the abortion at the end was okay. Another not totally happy ending, but the two stick together and that is what counts or it is actually a happy ending even because they weren’t ready yet for parenthood. As for the boy who loses his cousin and who was pretty troublesome, I felt like he maybe would on one occasion have appositive drug test, but did not turn out to be like this. I also liked that he did not stay the antagonist until the end, but understood quickly how happy the other players were with their new coach and the results and wanted back in again. His speech about his fears then towards the end was maybe a bit too much though.

Coach Carter’s way of training how he kept punishing his players on several occasions eventually also did become a bit repetitive, but it was alright and if we look at the moment when the aforementioned kid lost his cousin, we understand that there is also not always strict rules that are 100% valid. The on-court action was really fine. The more emotional moments like when the team members help one character with sit-ups and suicides as they were called or when they are all sitting there to study and reach the required results to continue training were alright too. The presentation when there is this poll I liked as well. The writers once again took the more critical route and we could think that this would be it. It is a really good film that entertains you nicely. You already understand this at the beginning when Coach Carter talks to his wife about potentially taking the job with the Oilers and she knows he will, even if he says differently. There is not a lot of relationship drama afterwards between the two and the wife mostly disappears from the action, which is fine too. Instead, the title character’s son gets some screen time as he is ready to change schools to be trained by his dad. After this gets through and we understand that the kid is maybe not too different compared to his dad and of course also gets the same punishment like everybody else for being late, this story is also not really pursued any further, but that is fine. The boy is just one of many and it is all about the ensemble. In terms of the team and the cast. They could have turned this into a three-hour film easily with all the sub-plots, but 2h15 feels right. Finally, it can be said that what makes this movie even more interesting is that it is based on actual characters. Coach Ken Carter existed and he is also still alive and given his approach to coaching I am not surprised to see at all which other fields he succeeded in as well. This movie is a well-rounded effort all-along and also has some good music. If you like Samuel L. Jackson, then it is close to must-see territory. One of 2005’s finest without a doubt and some of the critics are too harsh on it. The general audiences who loved it are more accurate I would say, even if now I feel really old knowing that LeBron was already a thing back then. Tough decision if this is the best basketball film I watched in 2023 or if it is the new Ben Affleck movie „Air“. I say watch them both.