Movie Review -- Coach Carter

-- COACH CARTER --

Director : Thomas Carter

Ken Carter, a successful sporting goods store owner takes over the job as a basketball coach at his former high school in Richmond, an inner-city public school in California for which he has previously played and set a yet unbroken records. He intends to change both his players unruly attitude and their dismal play performance. In order to assure his players would not follow their parents’ footsteps for being locked up in the jail but to go into the college and play college ball, he imposes a strict regime typified in written contracts that include stipulations for respectful behavior, a dress code and 2.3 grade point average as a requisite to play for him. They also have to sit in the front row in class, wear jackets and ties on game days.

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One of the players, Timo Cruz who is later found mingle with his elder, drug-dealing cousin, quits the team after an altercation with Carter, followed by other two last season’s scoring leaders. However, Coach Carter’s son, Damien Carter, an academic honour at the private school St.Francis transfers to Richmond High School to play on his father’s team. Carter agrees when Damien promises that he will maintain his GPA at 3.7.
Under Carter’s intense tutelage, his team becomes season undefeated, and even wins a holiday tournament, the initial resistance from the boys also soon dispelled.
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Despite the team’s winning record, Carter eventually realizes his players are developing bad attitudes by being arrogant and taunting the other teams, and many of them do not living up to his academic requirements, they do not even attend their classes.
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The climax of the story occurs after Carter receives his players’ poor achievements in academic,he locks the gym up in the midst of the still undefeated season and cancels all the basketball practice, forfeits games including the most important tournament and makes them spend their time in the. Carter insists that they are a team and everyone must accept the consequences for their collective actions as a team. However, the school board and the parents strongly oppose Carter’s actions, the votes of 4-2 to end the lockout make Carter decides to quit. When he arrives at the gym to pack his things, his players are studying inside the gym and point out that even though the gym is reopened, the school board could not force them to play and Cruz is finally able to answer Carter’s question on “what is your deepest fear?” Carter is heartened and decides to stay.
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The players manage to achieve the grade point and they make it into the state high-school championship playoffs. Unfortunately their first round of the state tournament is against the number one ranked team in the state, St.Francis. St.Francis wins with a score of 70-68. Carter’s team is understandably disappointed by the loss, but Carter gives them an inspirational talk and tells them he is proud of them. Although they could not turn out to be the champion of the state tournament, but six of them able to get scholarships and go into college .
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( Photo by Oyaya)

The protagonist of this movie is Ken Carter(Samuel L.Jackson), the basketball coach who understand the importance of the balancing between basketball and academic performance because many of his friends who could play better basketball ends up in jail. Thus, he does not want his players to take the same way, he wants them to go into college and live better than what their parents have now. Under his professional and intense coaching, his team manages to become undefeated throughout the season and get media’s attention. Meanwhile, his players manage to get scholarships and get into colleges. Jason Lyle(Channing Tatum), Timo Cruz(Rick Gonzalez), Kenyon(Rob Brown), Junior(Nana Gbewonyo), Worm(Antwom Tanner) are the players who act impolitely and proud at the first, but their attitudes change from time to time from riff-raffs to good students who attend classes and sit in the front row. At first they are strongly disagree with what have been done by their coach, but time passes and they know everything done by Coach Carter are for their own sakes. Although they lose to St.Francis in the first game of state tournament, but still they win their prides and honour from their positive behaviours growth.
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In this movie, several social problems are reflected. Firstly is the teenage pregnancy, Kenyon’s girlfriend, Kyra(Ashanti) who is pregnant gives up her plans to study in college in favour of having the baby, even though she sees first-hand how that has gone for her cousin. Kenyon who is the dad for the child is confussed and does not know whether he should continue to play college ball or take care of the baby. Besides, drug-dealing also shows by Timo Cruz in this movie. He goes back and forth between dealing drugs and playing on the team. One night, he witnesses his cousin being shot and killed by the sidewalk, the incident changes his perception and life as well, he does not want to end up in a jail, he pleads Carter to let him play for him. Other than that, less of concern towards education also shown by the characters in the movie. The players’ parents feel that their children are excellent in basketball and what they have to do is just playing basketball, study is something not important and time-wasting. They feel that playing basketball is the only way to avoid their children walk into the wrong path, therefore when Coach Carter locks up the gym and let the players study, their parents stand out and oppose. The movie also display the disrespectful attitudes of the youngsters, such as Worm and Junior who act arrogantly and rudely to the oldies , they use some uncivilized words like “dog”, “shit”, “bitch”, “ass” and et cetera. Carter starts to change their attitudes from the word “sir” which he claims that it is a term of respect, he then address everyone the term “sir”. Another social issue is the chaotic lives of the teenagers. After the Richmond wins the tournament, they are invited to a rich girl’s house for a party. Carter comes face to face with the house’s owner when he goes to that house to confront his players. He finds Damien in the pool and kissing one of the girls, others too flirting around with the girls. Carter is infuriated enough and threatens them with the toughest practice they have had to date.

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One of the messages trying to be conveyed in this movie is we should work hard in order to strive for success, the Richmond Oilers players undergo strict basketball training and intensive studies to excel in both basketball and academic in order to study in college. Besides, we should acknowledge the importance of education. Education is crucial to keep the teenagers in the right path but not simply work and get a low pay, or even suffer in the jail for the remaining of their lives. We should always hold on to a healthy lifestyle, both mentally and physically. Negative cultures such as teenage pregnancy, drugs-dealing, gun-shooting should not be practiced in our lives if we do not want to become a failure of this world. As a new generation, we should do what we should do to make this world a better world.

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In conclusion, this movie is very motivational indeed and it uses basketball, a popular sport to get the attention of the teenagers to watch this movie. There are plenty of values embedded in this movie and it is good for pupils to learn about working hard and never give up. The characters in this movie are the representatives of the youngsters nowadays to show how they think and why they react that way, and it tells us how would it be if we still think in certain ways and do not want to change our perceptions. Life is in our own hands, we have the rights to either colour it or ruin it, to brighten it we need to pay effort, however to kill one’s life, one minute is more than enough. Winner or a loser, it depends on us, the planner of our own lives.


:: SL ::