With shades of Remember the Titans, Glory Road could be written off as just another sports “feel good” film, but the performances of its cast (including Josh Lucas and an unrecognizable Jon Voight) make the movie worth watching.
Glory Road is from Remember the Titans producer Jerry Bruckheimer and is directed by James Gartner. The film tells the story behind what has been described as one of the greatest basketball games in NCAA history – between the 1966 teams Texas Western Miners and the #1 ranked Kentucky for the National Championship. The film also reveals the pivotal racial boundaries that the Miners’ coach Don Haskins and his team broke through during the season by using the first ever all-black lineup.
The movie starts with Haskins (played by Lucas) accepting the coaching job at Texas Western University, but quickly finding out the school was looking more for a person to run the men’s dorm. Football is king at Texas Western and there is little money for recruiting a basketball team that has a shot at any titles.
With this in mind, Haskins comes up with a unique idea and takes to the road to recruit black players from the North including Bobby Joe Hill (played by Derek Luke) and Willie Cager (played by Damaine Radcliff). The normal racial transitions and bonding experiences between teammates (both white and black) takes place throughout the first few minutes of the film. The film also makes sure that the audience knows Haskins (who was a girl’s basketball coach at the beginning) has all the needed qualities for a Hollywood coach – he screams a lot, is tough on his players, but he truly cares about them.
As the season begins, the black players struggle against Haskins’ traditional style of playing basketball, but a compromise is quickly reached. This leads to the team becoming an unstoppable force on the court as they take down school after school.
Off the court, the team is forced to face racial prejudice, including threats and violence, wherever they travel. The movie never gets too dark or even political with these events (it is a feel good Disney film after all), but the filmmakers make sure to show that this helped bring the team closer.
Lucas is solid in the film, but plays the standard Hollywood coach
Instead of letting it destroy his team, Haskins made a point to have his players shut the ignorance up on the court by winning the game. They faced their challenges as a team (black and white) and that success led them to the National Championship game against Kentucky and their legendary coach Adolph Rupp (played by Vioght).
No one thought the underdog Texas Western had a chance of winning the game against Kentucky, and Haskins further shocked the world when he had his white players sit the game on the bench and only played his black players. Any fan of college basketball knows the result of the game, and movie fans of this genre can pretty much guess how Glory Road ends.
While Glory Road has been done before and done better, the film benefits from strong performances from Lucas, the team, and Voight (who doesn’t have much screen time). These performances keep you interested in what is happening on the screen – even if you already know the film’s ending.
Lucas is a little out of place in the film, and seems to follow the blueprint for a tough coach that we have seen in performances by Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. At the same time, he is believable in the Haskins, and is able to hold his own against the automatic comparisons he must have known he would face taking the role. There is nothing really wrong with his performance, but he may seem too formulaic for some audiences.
I also wish they would have gone more into the story of what Haskins’ wife and children faced at home. We see that Haskins’ wife and children were forced to move with him into the dorm as a condition of the coaching job, but they never really show how this change affected their marriage. Also, Haskins’ wife received threatening letters as a result of her husband’s coaching, but they never really expand on this part of the story. She was more a back character that could have been written out of the entire movie and you wouldn’t notice. This is ground that was covered in films like Remember the Titans and even Coach Carter, and should have been shown here as well.
The team faced struggles on and off the court
The same can be said of the basketball players’ families. Some of the players’ mothers come into the movie (there is a great scene with one player in class with his mother after a call from the coach), but they never really show if any of the families were concerned with the players safety – even after one is attacked in a bathroom.
The DVD comes with some standard special features and some that sports fans will enjoy. They include Legacy of the Bear: Highlights of Coach Haskins’ Illustrious Career; Surviving Practice: An Inside Look into Coach Haskins’ Training Program; In Their Own Words; Alicia Keys music video for “Sweet Music;” deleted scenes; and audio commentaries from director James Gartner, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and writers Chris Cleveland and Bettina Gilois.
Legacy of the Bear follows Haskins’ career with the University of Texas El Paso. It features interviews with players, coaches, and historians. It also has archival footage, game footage, and photos. This is a feature fans of basketball will love, but it might be a little too much history for the average viewer. I would recommend watching it though because it gives more details about the movie.
Surviving Practice follows the four-hour per day practice schedule that Haskins’ 1966 winning team endured. It features interviews and film clips from the movie. Tim Hardaway, coach of the ABA’s Florida Pit Bulls, takes his squad through the practices. This is another feature that fans of basketball will probably enjoy more than the average viewer.
In Their Own Words has extended interviews with University of Texas El Paso basketball players that have played for Haskins and is a good feature to include on the DVD. I didn’t find it as interesting as the Legacy of the Bear, but some fans might.
Basketball fans will enjoy Glory Road
Glory Road is a film that has been made before and made better. It never strays too far from the “sports feel good” formula, and the audience is never really forced to question how the film will turn out in the end. With that said, I really enjoyed the movie much more than I thought I would. Every actor in the film does a solid job, and Lucas and Voight are great in the scenes they shared. I would highly recommend it to fans of sports movies or anyone wanting a good DVD that the whole family can watch.
Glory Road is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for an August 7th release. Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
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