This was a very good movie in the Coach Carter/Remember the Titans mold. It had all the tropes of its genre and did a good job of presenting them. The movie is about the 1966 Texas Western vs. Kentucky game and the season that led up to it. It is the story of how 7 black players overcame prejudice and end up playing a game that stood up for their entire race. There were many things that made this movie work in its genre.
The coach was tough but fair and he was hard on the players when he needed to be. Josh Lucas did an outstanding job as far as I am concerned and has entered the pantheon of great sports movie coaches. There were several great scenes of him reacting to how Seattle beat Texas Western and spoiled their perfect season. I also liked a scene with him seeming over matched when he met Adolph Rupp for the first time.
John Voight does an outstanding job as Adolph Rupp. He had the voice and mannerisms down pretty well and really kind of looked like the Kentucky Coach. The part where he is giving a pep talk to the team when they were down was outstanding IMO. They could have portrayed him as the mean old racist guy but Voight gave him a likeable quality. In the movie Rupp surrounds him self with racists and they uttered most of the slurs and not Rupp. I think they did this with an eye toward protecting Rupps sizable legacy in Kentucky.
Haskins wife who was played by Emily Deschanel the woman from the Bones TV show was kind of a low point in the movie. She played the generic supportive wife and didn't say or do very much at all. The movie would have really been solid if she was played by an actress that had a little more to give to the role. I think the scene where they get the death threats could have been outstanding if it was done by an actress with a lot of dramatic range. Deshanel just looked kind of wide-eyed and freaky most of the time.
The Kansas game was well handled and it made it seem like Western Texas got in because Jo Jo White stepped over the line out of bounds line before he launched the game winner. It was kind of like if not for the after the buzzer referee call then Kansas would have played Kentucky in the final. What was interesting is upon checking CBS sportsline it looks like Utah was totally omitted from the movie. I guess they were running short of funds or something.
The final payoff game wasn't a fake nailbiter like they usually do in this genre. They pretty much stuck to what happened in real life but I read in Sports Illustrated that Kentucky did not lead at all in the first half. It also implied that Pat Riley was the center and not a guard/forward like he actually played. Riley and Dampier were the star players on Kentucky though.
Well, all and all this movie was great and I will probably watch it again if it pops up on HBO some time in the future. It deserves a place with Hoosiers, Coach Carter, Remember the Titans and other great sports movies. It was a credit to the genre.
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