Review

Richmond is a troubled area. The high school dropout rate is 50 percent… and residents are more likely to go to prison than college. Teenage pregnancy is as common as the flu, which puts added pressures on an already strained economy. The stories you hear about the dangers the ghetto plays in the lives of the youth that grow there speak directly to the problems at Richmond.

Basketball is one of the few things the young men have that can take them away from the pains of reality. It stands as the highlight of a life that will likely lead to, at best, a life in poverty and at worst gangs, drugs, and an early death. So when Ken Carter, a former All-American basketball player and now small business owner in the city takes over the team, he looks to not only lead a revolution on the court, but in the lives of the men who play for him.

Carter, a former military man, institutes a rigid routine that not only molds these boys into intense physical specimens but gives them a reason to be more. He gives them a sense of self respect. What before was a motley rabble of ego and rebellion that resulted in conflict and failure becomes a cohesive team who finds success both on and off the court.

The movie itself is structured in such a way as to focus on the infamous lock-out of 1999. In that year, as the players failed in the classroom, Carter took the plan to the next level. He declared that the team would forfeit their next games, an amazing feat during a season that had been, until then, perfect. The backlash from the community, who saw only the failure of the basketball team and not the successes of its players, was immense. The players, on the other hand, seeing their progress and buying in to the coach´s plan, stuck by his side. In the end, the young men who were written off before they were born were suddenly something more. They were students, they were athletes, and they were men.

source: http://www.dvdtown.com/reviews/coach-carter/2973