After I wrote a review of Therese, several readers contacted me with complaints. They hadn't seen the movie; but they had read quite a bit about the beloved Saint Therese of Lisieux and disputed some things I'd said.
Such is the problem of film biographies. One person's life may have many - but not all - of the elements of a good drama, and the filmmaker feels a need to serve the viewers as well as the subject. Hence, accuracy is often hedged.
Here we go again.
Coach Carter is a story about Ken Carter, who took over the 1997 basketball team of Richmond High School, near San Francisco, a team filled with too much attitude and too little achievement, and led it to an unforgettable season.
Ken Carter is a real man. He's still alive, and his Web site, www.coachcarter.com, lists him as a motivational speaker.
Only someone who knows the real Carter can judge if Samuel L. Jackson's portrayal is accurate.
There's no such question about the movie. It's good.
Written by Mark Schwahn (The Perfect Score) and John Gatins (Hardball) and directed by Thomas Carter (no relation), Coach Carter moves to the beat of rhythm and blues and rap, which is no surprise, given the age of most of the characters and the fact that the film was produced by MTV.
The action fits seamlessly with the music, from artists such as Chingy, Kanye West, Fabolous, Twista, Red Caf, and Ciara. If anything will make older viewers comfortable with rap, it is movies such as this, which give the tunes context.
One artist not represented is Ashanti, which is sort of a surprise, because she makes her film debut in Coach Carter. She plays Kyra, the pregnant girlfriend of Kenyan (Rob Brown), one of the stars of the Richmond High School team.
Star is a relative term, because when Ken Carter agrees to take over the basketball team, his demands on the students cause the big scorers to leave.
Those demands? The players must sign a contract agreeing to maintain a 2.3 grade-point average; they must attend all classes and sit in the front row; they must wear coats and ties on game day, and they must treat opponents with respect.
This does not sit well with the disaffected youths of this working-class neighborhood, where poverty and drugs are rampant, single-parent families prevail, and the school has a 50 percent graduation rate.
Carter has some immediate credibility because he had been a star player for Richmond High and still lives and works in the neighborhood. But that doesn't get him very far with his team, which includes Junior Battle (Nana Gbewonyo), an outstanding player who doesn't go to class; Worm (Antwon Tanner), who fancies himself a ladies' man; Timo Cruz (Rick Gonzalez), a troubled youth who is perilously close to becoming part of his uncle's drug-distribution ring, and even Carter's own son, Damien (Robert Ri'chard), who demands to transfer from his private school so he can play for his father at Richmond.
Despite some ups and many downs, the team begins to work together under Carter's tutelage, and to its surprise - and the delight of the neighborhood - it begins to win.
But that's just on the court. The classroom is another matter, one that will become Carter's biggest challenge.
Because there really is no future in making sports movies about losers, Coach Carter proceeds, more or less, toward a predetermined climax. But there are quite a few times when the plot would seem to be heading for a cliche and avoids it, giving the film an edge and a generous splash of realism.
Jackson always manages to make a movie seem better than it is, and his young co-stars are engaging enough to make viewers care about them, especially Brown, who shows that the talent he exhibited in his first starring role in Finding Forrester was no fluke.
Yes, there are stereotypes, and occasionally the movie sounds like a hipper version of To Sir With Love. But the knowledge that the characters are based on real people gives Coach Carter some big-time poignancy.
Even if the real Ken Carter is but half the man of Samuel L. Jackson's version, one can only wish there are more like him.
Many more.
Contact Nanciann Cherry at: ncherry@theblade.com
or 419-724-6130.
First Published January 14, 2005, 12:18 p.m.
