Coach Carter

Doing a riff on his brother-with-attitude, Samuel L. Jackson plays the eponymous central character in this glossy but overly preachy sports drama. Based on a true story which made headlines across America in 1999, Ken Carter is the head coach of the Richmond High Oilers, a Californian basketball team with the potential to win the state championships. Yet Coach Carter isn't prepared to sacrifice sporting glory for academic excellence and when his students show disdain for their studies, he takes the unimaginable step of stopping them playing until their grades improve. Of course, you don't need me to tell you that this soon brings the heroic coach into direct confrontation with some in the community, but our boy's not for turning - no matter what the consequences.

Traipsing down the same well worn path as the likes of Dead Poet's Society and Dangerous Minds, Coach Carter is a standard issue one-good-man-fights-the-odds movie. Rigidly adhering to the parameters of the genre, the film lacks a sense of adventure or proportion when dealing with the characters, preferring to wheel out a predictable array of stereotypes (the talented but marginalized kids? Check. The pushy parents? Gotcha. The meddling school authorities? You better believe it). Maybe he's a victim of his own best roles, but there's something about Samuel L. Jackson which always makes you think he's on the point of losing the rag completely. That he manages to negotiate Coach Carter without threatening to get medieval on anyone's ass should probably be quantified as a personal success. Now, if they could just do something about the proliferation of cliches..