I like Samuel L. Jackson. I think he’s a talented actor; the only problem is, sometimes I think he spreads himself a bit too thin. It seems like every time you turn around, there’s another movie with Sam in it. For every Pulp Fiction he seems to make two clunkers, who loved Snakes on a Plane? Black Snake Moan? I know the man’s gotta eat, but sometimes I wish he’d just be a little choosier with the scripts. When Jackson has decent material to work with, he really shows what a talented actor he is. Take 2005’s Coach Carter, while nothing particularly new in the genre of inspirational sports stories. Jackson owns the film, makes us care about his title character and his team.
Jackson plays Ken Carter, a no-nonsense owner of a sporting goods store, and former high school basketball standout. After rough and tumble Richmond High School just outside of Oakland California suffers a four win season, Coach Carter is brought in to bring pride back into the program. This won’t be an easy task–the film makes it clear from the start that Richmond students face some pretty tough odds. By the mid 1990s at Richmond High School, students were 80% more likely to go on to prison than to higher education. The school graduated only 50% of its student body, and only 6% went to college. Obviously, it was hard to get these kids to class, let alone get them to play good basketball.
Carter wanted his athletes to be real student athletes, with an emphasis on “student.” He made every member of the team sign a contract stating that they would maintain a 2.3 GPA, attend their classes regularly, sit in the front row, and wear a tie to school on game day. He wanted to teach them to respect others and respect themselves. He saw this as a way for the young men to learn about honor and personal responsibility.
If the team failed to meet the terms of the contract, Carter canceled practice, locked the gym and forfeited the next game. This action enraged parents and other members of the community and gained him national press attention. Despite tremendous pressure, Carter stood by his actions, firmly believing he had to teach the kids that rules needed to be followed.
While a prefacing remark states that Coach Carter is inspired by the life of Ken Carter, a closing disclaimer tells us that some of the events and characters are fictitious, so we have to give the film a certain degree of artistic license. Still, the story remains close enough to reality to be uplifting and inspirational.
The students are typical of any inner city school film: the one who hates to go to class, the one who hates teachers and the one who can’t read; the standout here is Samuel L. Jackson. He is in total command of the screen; his presence is so all encompassing and convincing, the other actors dwarf in compassion.
Director Thomas Carter (Save the Last Dance), creates a good deal of energy in the game sequences without resorting to any kind of frenetic editing. While the basketball games in the movie are exciting, there aren’t that many of them, and Carter shows them to us in relatively brief, prophetic ways. Carter creates the bulk of his movie’s energy among the characters and their relationships with one another.
Generally speaking, Coach Carter is an inspirational story that lays out the truth without overdoing it. You may find yourself getting emotional at times, but more often than not, you’ll probably want to stand up and cheer.
Paramount presents the film in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio to excellent effect using an MPEG-4/AVC codec on a dual-layer BD50. Definition is solid, colors are truthful, strong black levels deliver deep, rich, but never bright or gaudy hues, and a light film grain produces a realistic texture. The filmmakers shot most of the film either indoors or at night, so don’t expect any fancy, eye-popping images, just reasonably natural-looking video.
As most of the soundtrack is made up of dialogue, there isn’t always a lot for the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio to do beyond reproducing it cleanly, which it does with ease. Occasionally, we get environmental noises like rain, thunder, cars, and helicopters, which the surround speakers pick up nicely. You’ll find a wide front-channel spread, too, some booming bass appropriate to the hip-hop musical score, and a generally smooth overall response.
The disc has no audio commentary involved, but it does have a fewother items. First up, there’s the featurette “Coach Carter: The Man Behind the Movie,” about twenty minutes with the real Ken Carter, his family, and players. Second, there’s “Fast Break at Richmond High,” about twelve minutes of background on how the young actors learned to play the game better and how the filmmakers shot action in the games. After that are six deleted scenes totaling about twelve minutes. Then, there are two more featurettes: “Writing Coach Carter: The Two Man Game,” about eight minutes with the screenwriter; and “Coach Carter: Making the Cut,” eighteen minutes of background material on the film.
Things wrap up with a music video, “Hope” by Twista, featuring Faith Evans; twenty-three scene selections, with bookmarks; a widescreen theatrical trailer; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.
