This is a true story about coach Don Haskins, of Texas Western, in El Paso, who was the first coach to start an all black line up in the NCAA tournament and have more than one black player start during the regular season of NCAA basketball. This movie is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Everything that is associated with his name goes along with this movie - minus the huge budget and wild action scenes. But if you've seen Remember the Titans, also produced by Jerry Bruckhemier, than you know exactly what kind of movie you're in for, because subtlety and character development have never been a trait associated with Bruckheimer. He's more known for the in-your-face, sludge hammer approach to story telling that leaves little room for interpretation and works more like a color by the numbers or connect the dots, type of movie.
Everything a person can expect from a racially motivated story is here in a full down pour of display that is the hurricane called Bruckheimer. The white players and black players have their moment of dispute as they try to put each other in their place. You've got your old assistant coach who is just around to throw out words of wisdom every now-and-then or make some comical comment. You've got your many shots of a coach in shock and surprise that his team is getting beat by a bunch of "negro" ball players. You've got a few scenes with the board of the school as they question Don Haskins of recruiting so many black players, which ultimately amount to nothing but to show there was a race problem at the higher levels of the school, but these scenes don't really go anywhere as they just seem to emphasize there was a racial problem. You've got your scenes where black players impart some of their culture to the white players. Just like every sports movies every made, you've got that one scene of, "If you quit now, you're going to keep quitting for the rest of your life," speech. You've got the scene where Don Haskins' wife is in a room full of other women and over hears them talking about "that coach" playing all of those "negro" players, then she is asked some question, said question doesn't matter, her response is all the sledge hammer approach needed for her to say she is the wife of "that coach". I could keep going on and on and on as every cliche from every sports movie and racial motivated movies is here in full display, no stone is left unturned.
This is all sad because this story is an interesting story and Josh Lucas does a good job with what little they've given him to do. I can only imagine what he could have done with a better script. He should have been the main focus of the movie, his relationship with the players, his relationship with wife, and his relationship with board I think would have been a much better focus on character development and helped the movie to be better. Granted it would have been more like Hoosiers, but is that a bad thing? I don't think so because a focused story is much better than a story built on and with cliches, while starring cliches. What made Don Haskins want to be that radical in starting and recruiting that many black players, especially in a southern school? His motivations and a willingness to explore why he did this would make a fascinating movie but sadly Bruckheimer is more concerned about the cliches associated with the sports and racial movie. Everything here seems force fed to the audience, instead of letting everything flow a character and story standpoint, which is a much better way approach these racial issues. And as with any sports movie there will always be cliches because sports are always growing all sorts of cliches, that can never be helped, but if there are good characters and a story, cliches won't matter. See Hoosiers, The Fighter, Warrior, and Rocky for good examples of how to do a cliche sports movie.
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