The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Coach Carter Starring: Samuel L. Jackson Ever seen Michelle Pfeiffer trying to put on her scary face as marine-turned mentor in 'Dangerous Minds'? Danny DeVito wheezing his chubby little way around an assault course to win over his military school pupils in 'Renaissance Man'? Or even Goldie Hawn sticking it right up the blokes by out-jogging the entire football team in 'Wildcats'? If you have, you should instinctively know that this is a sub-genre of film which has long since run its course. Yet here, in 'Coach Carter', we have Samuel L. Jackson somehow defying all the odds by managing to squeeze a genuinely entertaining and absorbing flick out of this long over-egged pudding. Loosely based on a true story from the late '90s, it stars a dappered-up Jacko as title character Ken Carter, a high school basketball legend who returns to the scene of his former triumphs as a worldly-wise coach. It's not long before his predictably unconventional methods have the wannabe-gangsters in his team eating out of his hand Ð and, more importantly, winning games like they're going out of fashion. But there's trouble a-brewing when it becomes apparent that these players, while excelling on the court, are doing flunk-tastically badly in the classroom. So Coachy decides there'll be no more fun and games until the good grades start rolling in Ñ and that's when the real problems start. 4.3 stars out of 5
