Themes: Coaches and Players, Teachers and Students, Basketball Players
Main Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Ri'chard, Rob Brown, Ashanti, Debbi Morgan
Release Year: 2005
Country: US
Run Time: 136 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
The true-life story of a coach who tries to teach his players that there's more to life than basketball is brought to the screen in this sports drama. Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) was once a star player on the Richmond High School basketball team in Richmond, CA, and years later, after establishing himself in publishing and marketing, he returns to the school and to the team as the new basketball coach. Carter quickly sees that his work is cut out for him -- the team is having an awful season, and their fights off the court are more decisive than their play on the court. While Carter wants to make the Richmond cagers into a winning team, he also wants a lot more -- to teach the boys to respect themselves and one another, and that they must excel in the classroom as well as in the gymnasium. Under Carter's guidance, the team turns their losing season around, with the state title a genuine possibility. However, when Carter learns that a number of his players have let their grade point averages slip below 2.3, as mandated in a contract he entered into with the students, he decides to lock the team out of the gym and send them into study hall until their marks improve. Carter's plan quickly becomes a subject of controversy among parents and team boosters, and their objections are soon picked up by the local news media, many of whom are not sympathetic to Carter's belief that his players must have goals beyond college ball or the NBA. Coach Carter also features Rob Brown and Rick Gonzalez as members of the team, and R&B diva Ashanti in her film debut as the girlfriend of one of Carter's players. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Like Hoosiers about 20 years before it, Coach Carter is a well-done feel-good film mixing athletics with high school drama -- well, about as feel-good as any film with a fair amount of profanity and gang violence can be. It's another scenario where the underdogs are whipped into shape with tough love by an idealistic coach. Of course, it's about half a century after the time at which Hoosiers took place, and Coach Carter is in many respects a different ball game. The arena isn't whitebread rural Indiana, but the tough, ethnically mixed, disadvantaged urban neighborhoods of the San Francisco Bay Area community of Richmond. Much of the message, however, remains the same. Ken Carter (played with admirable fortitude by Samuel L. Jackson) is just as concerned with molding his boys into men with a firm disciplinary hand as he is with teaching them basketball, banking on making them winners on the court as well as in real life. The four-month turnaround in his charges' maturity, academic performance, and (lest we forget) the win-loss record that follows is for the most part predictable. But it's an acceptably entertaining ride nonetheless, and if your kids' attention might flag during the love scenes between one of the players and R&B star Ashanti, the well-constructed, reasonably realistic sequences on the basketball court will rev them right up again. A fair amount of gritty detail -- including teenage pregnancy, dilapidated housing, parents and school officials more concerned with winning basketball games than making sure the players graduate, and gang warfare -- also elevate this above the usual athletic triumph film. And while the goals might be achieved a little more smoothly than they customarily are in real life, the message -- of putting as much effort into responsible character and education as athletics -- is one that most viewers will enthusiastically endorse. ~ Rob Theakston, All Movie Guide
Tim Beach - Art Director, Randi Hiller - Casting, Sarah Halley-Finn - Casting, Save Scott - Choreography, Damien Carter - Consultant/advisor, Ken Carter - Consultant/advisor, Mark Ellis - Coordinator, Debrae Little - Costume Designer, Mark Anthony Little - First Assistant Director, Thomas Carter - Director, Ian Sander - Second Unit Director, Peter E. Berger - Editor, Thomas Carter - Executive Producer, Van Toffler - Executive Producer, Caitlin Scanlon - Executive Producer, Sharla Sumpter - Executive Producer, Nan Morales - Executive Producer, Trevor Rabin - Composer (Music Score), Jennifer Hawks - Musical Direction/Supervision, Carlos Barbosa - Production Designer, Sharone Meir - Cinematographer, Brian Robbins - Producer, Mike Tollin - Producer, David Gale - Producer, Marco Miehe - Set Designer, Robert L. Sephton - Sound/Sound Designer, Tierre Turner - Stunts Coordinator, Dain C. Turner - Stunts Coordinator, John Gatins - Screenwriter, Mark Schwahn - Screenwriter, Nicole Hirsch-Whitaker - Second Unit Camera, Robert L. Sephton - Sound Effects Editor, Marty Bresin - Special Effects Coordinator, Nancy Nye - Set Decorator, Denzil Foster - Featured Music
Ken Carter takes over as the basketball coach at his former high school in Richmond, near San Francisco. He sets strict new rules for the players, insisting that they sign contracts agreeing to meet his standards, such as agreeing to remain at or above a 2.3 GPA, attend all classes sitting in the front row, and wearing a shirt and tie on game nights. Some players decide to leave the team, and Carter's son transfers from his private school to join the team.
With Carter's intense coaching, the team begins the season undefeated, and wins a holiday tournament. However, Carter discovers that some of his players are not producing the agreed academic results. He locks the team out of the gym in the midst of their still-undefeated season, canceling practice and forfeiting games in favor of studying in the library.
The school board eventually votes to end the unpopular lockout, despite dissenting votes from the principal and the chairperson of the board. Carter is about to quit, but he finds the players sitting at school desks in the gym, with teachers tutoring them. The players point out that even though the gym is reopened, the school board can't force them to play. Carter is heartened and decides to stay, thanking the players.
The team makes it into the state high-school championship playoffs. The climactic game takes place in the tournament's first round against the top-ranked team in the state, St. Francis (starring a superstar NBA prospect, Ty Crane). In the last second, Crane makes the winning shot to end Richmond's season.
Over the closing song, six of the Richmond players are shown to have joined college basketball teams.
The reviews for the film were mixed, and as of June 1, 2009 it held a 64% fresh meter at Rotten Tomatoes. Critics gave Jackson considerable praise for what they believed to be his strongest performance.[citation needed]
Box office
The movie debuted at #1 in the United States box office and has grossed over $67,264,877 to date. However, the film was not as big of a hit worldwide, managing to bring in only $9,404,929 overseas, for a total of $76,669,806.[1]
The film features the song Hope by Twista and Faith Evans. An extensive list of songs is featured on the soundtrack which differs from the soundtrack recording. The recording has five songs which were not featured in the film: About da game by Trey Songz, Balla by Mack 10 featuring Da Hood, Beauty queen by CzarNok, What Love Can Do by Letoya and Wouldn't You Like to Ride, by Kanye West, Malik Usef, and Common.
