Paramount (USA)
2.40:1 1080p
136 minutes
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English, DD 5.1 French, DD 5.1 Spanish
Subtitles: Optional English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Extras: Coach Carter: The Man Behind the Movie; Fast Break at Richmond High; six deleted scenes; “Hope” music Video; Writing Coach Carter: The Two Man Game; Coach Carter: Making the Cut; theatrical trailer
Released: 16 December 2008
Blu-ray case
I popped Coach Carter into my Blu-ray player expecting “same ol’, same ol’”. After Remember the Titans and Glory Road, I haven’t felt the need to watch yet another American sports drama about improbable winners. I respect the arduous journeys undertaken by athletes, especially those with hard-life backgrounds. I’m lucky that I haven’t had to face live-or-die situations on a daily basis, and I count my blessings. However, down-on-their-luck sports dramas tend to follow the same trajectories, with young men consumed by infighting, self-doubt, and social loathing turned into grit and determination by a father-figure coach who provides the parenting that his kids never got at home. These stories mostly end with Cinderella moments. After all, as Roger Ebert once observed, not many people would go see a movie about a team that lost.
Coach Carter is headlined by an in-control Samuel L. Jackson, who is very authoritative when he isn’t bug-eyed, loud, or just plain awful (see Die Hard With a Vengeance and the Star Wars prequels). Jackson plays Ken Carter, a man who sells sports equipment in Richmond, California. Richmond is in one of the state’s worst school districts, but since Carter attended Richmond High and wants to help his neighborhood, he takes a job as the basketball coach. He signs a contract with the players, which states that they must attend all of their classes, sit in the front rows of their classes, obtain 2.3 GPAs, wear ties and sports coats on game days, and improve their conditioning instead of focusing on being ball hogs.
When some of the players see their GPAs dip below 2.3, Coach Carter locks the gym and benches his entire team. The players’ parents are upset, and the teachers are surprisingly unhelpful because they resent having to write progress reports for a basketball coach. Coach Carter, knowing the odds that young black men are more likely to go to prison or be killed than to lead long, productive lives, resigns in despair. However, the players, having learned a measure of self-respect, decide to finish what they and their coach started. They raise their grades to Coach Carter’s satisfaction, and some of them attend college. Oh, yeah--they’re invited to the state finals, but they lose in the first round to a tough opponent.
I think that the story in Coach Carter is different from many other sports dramas due to the fact that, in some ways, crushing poverty is even more of an oppressive weight than racial tensions. Remember the Titans and Glory Road focused on racial tensions, which can be buried through strength of will for pragmatic reasons (you gotta get over your prejudices in order to win). Also, you can legislate behavior, such as enforcing integration and making hate speech illegal. On the other hand, with crushing poverty, sometimes, no amount of will can get you out of your misery. Even though you can give financial handouts, there is only a limited amount of money to be disbursed. The characters in Coach Carter are all looking at dead ends, which makes Ken Carter’s leadership very inspiring (and relevant to today’s problems).
The movie is a tad long due to similar situations being repeated over and over again, but the compelling performances will maintain your interest.
Video:
Usually, catalog titles don’t look as good as recent theatrical releases, but Coach Carter boasts an impressive 2.40:1 1080p video transfer. The picture is very clear and sharp. Although there is some grain during expected moments (due to tricky lighting conditions and the film stocks that were used), grain and noise are not distracting. The rich yellows and oranges of the movie’s California locales are the primary beneficiaries of the video technicians’ care. The only downside I noticed was sporadic speckling (white dots on the source print from time to time). Given this movie and Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables, it’s apparent that Paramount knows how to present its catalog titles in HD.
Audio:
The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English track efficiently and competently performs front-loaded duties. The center channel dominates due to the talk-heavy nature of the story, leaving the front mains and surround speakers to provide lift during the rowdy basketball games. The subwoofer thumps its way into the room for some passages (such as a school dance and a house party) with hip-hop music.
Extras:
“Coach Carter: The Man Behind the Movie” is a tribute to the reach Ken Carter, and you get interviews with the eponymous hero as well as his friends, relatives, and students.
“Fast Break at Richmond High” examines the basketball choreography, which was based on Coach Carter’s game plans.
There are six deleted scenes, which were trimmed for the right reasons. However, one deleted, which takes place at a rich kid’s party, does a good job of highlighting the discrepancies between the “haves” (who can go to good colleges with poor grades but influential connections) and the “have nots” (who might even go to college even with brains and good grades).
There’s the “Hope” music video by Twista featuring Faith Evans.
“Writing Coach Carter: The Two Man Game” focuses on the script-development process, and “Coach Carter: Making the Cut” is a general overview of the production.
Finally, you get the theatrical trailer.
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