GLORY ROAD
*** out of *****

Genres
Drama
Sports

2006
Directed by
James Gartner
Written by
Chris Cleveland & Bettina Gilois
Cast:
Josh Lucas .... Coach Don Haskins
Derek Luke .... Bobby Joe Hill
Jon Voight .... Adolph Rupp
Austin Nichols .... Jerry Armstrong
Mehcad Brooks .... Harry Flournoy
Alphonso McAuley .... Orsten Artis
Damaine Radcliff .... Willie "Scoops" Cager
Al Shearer .... Nevil Shed
Sam Jones II .... Willie Worsley

The success of Remember the Titans pretty much sealed the deal that we'd see more inspirational sports films from Jerry Bruckheimer. Although the producer is generally known for this big budget action films he has from time to time dabbled in something that is out of the norm for him. Glory Road follows what is essentially the same template as Remember the Titans, a team is assembled with a bunch of African American players integrated with the white players, they face a series of obstacles including racism but triumph regardless. Instead of American Football we're playing basketball in this film and although there are similarities between the two these are essentially different films. While Remember the Titans focuses on the relationships with the players, Glory Road focuses on the coach's struggle to create a winning team. Between the two, Glory Road is a stronger and better film, but only by a thin margin and only in the context of inspirational sports films.

The film is based on the true story of Coach Don Haskins (played by Josh Lucas), a girl's basketball coach who is given an opportunity to coach Division 1 men's basketball at Texas Western, a small University with a losing record. When he finds it difficult to recruit players he decides to find his team on the street courts around America. He assembles a team made up of predominantly black players and trains them for the upcoming season. These talented players becomes the first black players to start in Division 1 college basketball and they triumph over adversity, racism, and internal politics to have a record winning season and play in the 1966 NCAA basketball championship against the impressive Kentucky side coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp (played by an almost unrecognisable Jon Voight).

Made up of the same sugary coating that was spooned over Remember the Titans, this film compacts several years into what feels like just one. However, the sugary coating on this film seems less dense as the perfect team's record is broken in one scene where they lose a game that seems like it's thrown in just to remind us that no one is perfect.

The basketball action is this film is a pleasure to watch; the quick cutting and camera techniques used make the game appear like the most exciting game ever and brings you to the edge of your seat. Much like stirring real-life games (that is, if you're a fan of the sport), those scenes manage to conjure up the same feelings one would experience at a live match. The director certainly has done a fairly good job with these scenes and they are among the highlights of the film.

One major problem I had with this film was performances, mainly from the film's lead Josh Lucas, an unlikely choice for a lead in a major film. My main concern with Lucas is that his accent felt fake, which is funny considering he's originally from the Southern U.S. It's about as bad a Southern accent as Renée Zellweger in Cold Mountain (2003) who is also from the South (born in Texas). What's the deal? Have these people spent too much time in Hollywood that they forgot how a Southern accent sounds? Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but for someone that has lived in the Southern U.S. for several years it's something that I picked up on within minutes of the film starting and it bothered me throughout. If something that little can take you out of a film then it ceases to be a little something.

Aside from this, the actors portraying the players were all very good, although none of them appeared unique or memorable with the exception of Big Daddy David Lattin (Schin A.S. Kerr). Not because his performance was amazing but only because he was so freaking big.

Glory Road is a good film for sports fans to watch on a rainy day, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get it. It's guilt free entertainment for the whole family and is exactly what you'd expect from Disney.

Finger_Of_DOOM's reviews also appear on DVD Compare, where they include details of the DVD release. For this review click here.

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