Maaaaaan listen, why hasn't my man Samuel L. Jackson gotten an Oscar yet? Really, though. I just peeped this joint Coach Carter, and the movie was damn near a classic basketball movie, word is bon jovi! It ranks right up there with Above the Rim and Teen Wolf (I'm kidding about the Teen Wolf, but that was a funny flick). It had all the elements a good movie should have: humor, drama, action, sports, real life situations. But most importantly, it the criminal element. All these things made this movie both entertaining and inspirational. (I sound like a ill white movie columnist, right?)
What made the movie really gangsta was my pana, Samuel L. Jackson. You forget that he was a actor and really believe him to be a coach. Please get this man a Oscar. Even if he don't he still has the greatest award in the world, the Ghetto Pass. Try to win that one Kevin Spacey!
Coach Carter is based on real events that happened in the late '90s in Richmond, Cali. Richmond High School had a basketball team that only won four games the season prior to getting a new coach (Kent Carter). Once he came thru, he promised to make them winners if they held up a 2.3 GPA and all types of other wild stuff. So they agreed and went undefeated for the season, but slipped up on the grades so the coach benched the whole team on the eve of playing against they rival school. This caused the illest controversy cause the whole hood was basketball fans like a MF. That basically sums up the basis of the movie.
What I was feeling about the movie was that each important character on the b-ball team got enough burn for the audience to appreciate what they character brought to the table. You got to know what they characters was about and how they got down, which had you feeling them, you know what I'm saying? It wasn't just like "this is that kid and he's that one and this, that and a third." All of them was doing them and going through they own struggles, whether it was gang banging, bagging girls, school hardships or a pregnant girlfriend. Åll real life situations that I've been thru personally (except the pregnant girl thing, I swear).
Take my man Rick Gonzalez. Son was the young outlaw type character that had to decide whether to live the life of a gang banger or high school student/athlete. He did his thang in the movie and his character was well appreciated. How about homie Rob Brown, son had his girl (Ashanti) pregnant right when he was about to blow. I know a whole lot of heads in the hood can relate to a guy like that in a movie. Then of course you have Robert Ri'chard, the Shaq of the team and the one that has the most promise of making something of himself and is also the one with the most problems when it comes to his studies. All these characters represent a part of what's going on in our hood community every day, and they get respect for making it believable.
On another note, I was surprised to see how good Ashanti was in her acting debut (if she had another movie before this, I ain't know nothing about it). She was looking dumb cute and she really came off like a 16- or 17-year-old. Props to her for doing a good job, hope she doesn't get gassed off this review though. The O giveth and the O taketh away the props. Big ups to her though, she's a cutie. I mean with her money, I would've gotten with that, too. I need a sugar mama.
At the end of the game, I had to give the movie 4 and 1/2 Gangstas.
The movie was damn near perfect with great acting from all the characters. My man Sam the Intern went with me to see the joint and he wanted me to give it 5 and he never likes anything, that's how good the movie was.
But me being that gangsta critic that I am, I explained to him why it wasn't a classic classic. The reasons were: They could've cut a little fat off the scene when Ashanti was with her man Rob and a baby in the house. There was no real need for the scene to be that long. I think there should've been a rapper thrown in the mix somewhere, and Janet Jackson should've came outta left field as a cheerleader and done her dance just for me. If it would've had those three little things, we would've had a perfect basketball flick. I ain't mad though, I was one of the best movies I've seen this year.
On one last note, it was funny how me and Sam was sitting and we saw this guy two rows in front of us that looked just like Lang. We called him "Fake Lang." I was ready to snipe that boy for looking like my man.
-Omar Mazariego
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