Coach Carter – Blu-ray Review

By Frankie Dees Dec 17, 2008, 15:24 GMT

Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson stars in the inspiring true story of controversial high school basketball coach Ken Carter, who benched his entire undefeated team for poor academic performance, in order to teach his players the importance of education. ...more

Samuel L. Jackson stars as the titular 'Coach Carter' in this perfectly amiable if slightly formulaic sports pic. Although the film doesn't really present much new, Sam Jackson's strong central performance is worth checking out and for already established fans, Paramount gives the film a nice Blu-ray sprucing up. 

A fairly apparent amalgam of 'Lean on Me' or 'Stand and Deliver' with any number of sports pics like 'Remember the Titans' and 'Hoosiers', this MTV-produced film tells the true story of Ken Carter (Sam Jackson), a former hot-shot bball player at Richmond high school who gets recruited years later to take over as head coach for a disconnected, undisciplined team of kids who just don't seem to care. 

Causing a lot of controversy in the lower-class Richmond, Ken Carter draws up a basketball contract that enforces a few roles i.e. maintaining a 2.3 GPA, sitting in the front row of class and wearing a tie on game day. Trying to instill both respect for the game and respect for education, the student athletes first rebel and then slowly come around to respecting him when they start winning games. 

A town riot ensues, however, when Carter learns that the students are not upholding their contract by not keeping their grades up so he chains up the gym and cancels practices and games until the students show improvement.

A media maelstrom ensues and the board of education ends up voting to have Carter stop the gym lockdown - a move that causes Carter to quite. But will his students stand up for him? And take it upon themselves to get their grades up? 

I'm pretty sure we all know the answers but even if the film plays it mostly obvious, the film generally makes up for it with engaging performances from the cast with Sam Jackson giving Ken Carter a air of authenticity. Stern, proud and merciless, Carter gives and demands respect, even with his own son, and I'm sure reflects the ideas of the real Carter whose is shown in the featurette. 

The group of kids run the usual gamut between the tough, gangster types who just need love, the smart kid who might end up being tied down by having a kid, the goofy comedic type and so on but even if the characters are somewhat generic, the actors embodying them rise above the writing to wring genuine emotion from manipulative setups. 

Slightly long at 2 hours and 20 minutes, director Thomas Carter still fashions an entertaining film full of the necessary energy to breath life into the constant basketball games that could easily fallen to cliché if handled wrongly. Overall, it's predictable stuff but entertaining and inspiring for the right audience. 

'Coach Carter' comes to Blu-ray with a 2.35:1 1080p AVC encode and the results are fine, if maybe slightly disappointing considering the only three year old print. Detail and depth is ok but there seems to be more grain than usual for a film from 2005 and there are even a few artifacts. There's no confusing this for standard-def, however. A Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is provided and does a great job presenting the song-filled soundtrack and lively b-ball games. 

Special Features are carried over from the DVD and include the featurettes 'The Man behind the Movie', 'Fast Break at Richmond High', 'Writing Coach Carter' and 'Making the Cut'.

Almost an hour in total length, these featurettes are informative particularly 'The Man behind the Movie' which takes a look at the real Ken Carter. We also get six 'Deleted Scenes', a Music Video and the films theatrical trailer in high-def. 

'Coach Carter' is an above-average sports movie that manages to rise above the formula to become entertaining with most of the credit going to the strong perf of Sam Jackson. The Blu-ray specs are competent but I might be more tempted to go with a rental. 

Coach Carter [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon. Visit the DVD database for more information.