Coach Carter (the movie)

Spoiler warning: Plot and ending details follow

I'm deeply impressed with the movie. When I set out to see it, I didn't know that it's based on a true story and was just expecting a cliche movie where a new coach comes, and puts new life in a failing basketball team, and helps them win some coveted championship. I did notice that the movie was 135 minutes long, and was wondering why they have to take so long to show a simple concept like this. Now I explain how the movie kept me hooked till the very end.

As movie starts, Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) joins as coach of Richmond High School basketball team, 'The Oilers', who have never won the local basketball championship. Jackson is a school alumni, and wants to do something for the school. True to my belief, Jackson did his magic, and the team won the local level championship for first time in school's history. They do it in a fairy tale manner with an undefeated record, in about 70 minutes only. I don't care, I do love fairy tales.

The movie captures the team spirit with simple dialogue such as "You said we're a team. One person struggles, we all struggle. One person triumphs, we all triumph.". The coach's and team's highest ambitions have been achieved and the lovely fairy tale seems over. Now the question nagging me was, what are they gonna do in next 65 minutes?

What really happens is that not all is fine with our fairy world. In order to concentrate on Basketball, the team members have neglected their studies, and most are failing academically. The coach wants them to concentrate on their studies for a while, but the team members are blown over with their success, and want to prepare for competing at state level. To put a little background, it's an academically low ranking school, and most of the school's students anyways are supposed to fail, and hence no one really cares. In between, we are also shown love life of a player, and the attraction towards criminal way of life of another.

In a stern move, Jackson suspends all basketball practice, and predictably the students/players revolt. Jackson makes his case heard to public in following manner:

Jackson: [to the people in attendance at the board hearing] You really need to consider the message you're sending this boys by ending the lockout. It's the same message that we as a culture send to our professional athletes; and that is that they are above the law. If these boys cannot honor the simple rules of a basketball contract, how long do you think it will be before they're out there breaking the law? I played ball here at Richmond High 30 years ago. It was the same thing then; some of my teammates went to prison, some of them even ended up dead. If you vote to end the lockout, you won't have to terminate me; I'll quit.

The school administration chooses to override Jackson, and he prepares to leave. In the meanwhile, the player with tormented love life takes right decisions (and of course regains his love), and the player moving towards crime checks himself with some help from Jackson. In general, players realize Jackson's good intentions, and rally to his support (Fairy tale stuff again, but I do love it).

So what happens next? I would have bet my money on the Oiler's going on to winning the state championship. But actually, our Oilers are pitted against the state champions in an early round, and are defeated, but not before giving some scary moments to the champions. They lose the match but win the hearts. The final match has some memorable quotes, and the one which tops them all is:
Jackson: "Just because you deserve it, they won't give it to you. Sometimes you have to take what's yours."

And then we come to know that it's a true story, and most players of that team indeed passed out from school, attended college, and are reasonably successful in life. Who says fairy tales cannot be true?