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Glory Road

Isaac | Raleigh, NC | 02/08/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"From the powerful "Hoosiers" to last year's excellent "Coach Carter," we have witnessed a number of basketball films in which a coach takes command of a team of underdogs, nourishes their skills through a rough season, and takes them all the way to the Big Game. In short, you have seen "Glory Road" before, even if you haven't purchased a ticket yet.



You are familiar with all of the cliches: the coach, and the players, face hardships on and off the courts, moments of in-game suspense are established by slow-motion, and the ending is so foreseen that you can bet your life on what will happen. But somewhere between the first scene and the end credits, I forgot that I had seen this done before, and I left the theater inspired.



"Glory Road" tells the story of Texas Western University's 1966 championship victory over the intimidating Kentuky Wildcats and the journey they took to get there. The newly hired coach, Don Haskins (Josh Lucas), takes a bold step in hiring a number of black players, all of whom, he believes, are undiscovered talent waiting to be put in the spotlight. It was this move that began to breakdown the racial barriers not just in the NCAA, but in the United States, and the segregation issues that existed in that time are heavily studied in a number of the film's sequences.



First, there is the matter of the players already playing for Texas Western, who must accept the presence of their new teammates. Then there is the matter of school officials, who, naturally, find Haskins' methods of recruiting unorthodox. Finally, there are the opinions of the media, who will find it insane that that Haskins would recruit talented black players and, eventually, start five black players in the national championship game.



But the aspects of the players is not what makes "Glory Road" an excellent film. What makes this an excellent film is that we get to know the players, their struggles, and their personal histories; the well coreographed game scenes that accurately portray what actually happened during the games are more like extra goodies. Chief among the new players are Bobby Joe Hill (Derek Luke) and Willie Scoops Cager (Damaine Radcliff), who introduce a new style of basketball that would later become an influence to the modern principles of the sport. Their style conflicts with the style that Haskins believes in, and in one memorable scene, when his team his down, he orders Hill to play the game his way and they arise victorious.



Another key character is Kentuky head coach Adolph Rupp, an inspired and firey performance by John Voight. He knows that Texas Western is making history as they progress through the season and into the championship game, which he why refers to them as "a special team" during one of his timeouts. Given the historical context of his first name in relationship to racism, you would think that "Glory Road" establishes him as a villain, but it doesn't. The film just sits back and observes the arrogance of Rupp and other individuals during that time who were rooting for Kentuky just because Haskins had black players on his team. The film doesn't pick sides. It presents both of them, so graphically in one scene that it pushes the barriers of the PG rating. It's not being biased in favor of the black players. It paints an honest portrait of what happened.



The performances are excellent, with Josh Lucas playing Coach Haskins in a role that should be talked about for a while. However, the film's spirit doesn't totally lie in the powerful depiction of it's characters, but in what happens after the events of the story, and most of it's awesomeness comes out of what we know now. If there wasn't a Coach Haskins who recruited a Bobby Joe Hill, then there would have probably never been a Michael Jordan, a Lebron James, or an Allen Iverson. "Glory Road" is inevitably a valuable history lesson, which we are still learning in our society today, and like "Crash," it establishes the lesson by showing victimization and antagonization.



I suppose that's what sets "Glory Road" apart from most other sports films: the race relationship is just as important as the game. Making ends meet through a checklist of sports cliches, director James Gartner and screenwriters Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois deserve much respect for what they have accomplished. But the film makes a very haunting point in its context. Although its amazing how far we have come in the past forty years in race relations, we still have a long way to go. - Isaac



Rated PG; 106 minutes; Directed James Gartner

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A Very Familiar Road

Chris Roberts | Astoria, NY | 08/16/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I am recommending this film because it is a good film. But I especially recommend this film to any of you out there who have never seen "Remember the Titans," "Coach Carter," "Miracle," or "Friday Night Lights" because this is essentially the same movie. "Glory Road" is a very well done parade of sports movie clichés. The gold standard for this genre remains "Remember the Titans," as that film made you feel the racial pressure that the characters experienced, and Josh Lucas is no Denzel Washington.



This film, like all Disney films, has a lot to preach. Above all they want you to work hard and stay in line because if you do then one day you too can experience true glory. The problem I have with this lesson is that to accomplish it the film has to make you believe that the coach can do wrong. So when he busts out his Gestapo tactics we're supposed to eat it up because we know that in the end they win the national championship. We, here in America, pride ourselves on being anti-tyranny, but this film, and all those mentioned above, have coaches that definitely slant towards the tyrannical. Yet Haskins (Josh Lucas) is portrayed as a hero simply because he gets the job done. Being a Detroit Lions fan I've seen these tactics fail miserably, and yet when Marty Mornhinwig got the boot nobody hypothesized that it might be because of his hyper-aggressive style. One lesson that I found to be spot on was that these kids did not need the approval of Texans or racist boosters.



I am a sports fan because I love the unpredictability of it, but sports movies are pretty much anti-climatic by nature. However, I still enjoyed watching the staged drama of this film. Lucas was looking for a star vehicle and at least got a box office victory out of it. More importantly he nails the role and was a lot of fun to watch. I was also glad to see Tatyana Ali get work, although she is quickly reduced to nothing more than a cheerleader. Director James Gartner keeps the filmmaking simple, only occasionally sliding into the fancy. The story basically tells itself and he does nothing to steer it off course. I do question the realism of a few of the scenes. I was especially concerned about the idea that the one game they lost was only because of on court racism. It seems all too simplistic and overly to the point. Also, when Haskins kicks the white kids out of the championship game (just because they're white) they seemed to roll over for him too easily, but I guess that is one upside to running a dictatorship.



In the end this film is about racism, using sports as a backdrop. I know the point is to show how far we've come, but I can't help but think that films like this pick at scabs. We all know that being racist is bad and bad for business, so why tell us again? It is, however, to the films credit that they portray Haskins as an overachiever who was dealt a bad hand, as opposed to a civil rights crusader. Yes, he broke down racial walls, but he was really in it for that national championship. ***1/2

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