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Coach Carter

2005

Thomas Carter

Samuel L. Jackson, Rob Brown, Channing Tatum, Robert Ri'chard ...

6.6

15,245

Drama Inspired by a true-life story, "Coach Carter" is an inspirational account of a controversial high school basketball coach, who received both high praise and staunch criticism when he made national news in 1999 for benching his entire undefeated basketball team for poor academic performance.

	Media	Author	Review
		Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"[An] afternoon-TV special trying to pass as a real movie (...) Thomas Carter gives every sports-drama cliche a chance to play. No bad idea is benched (…) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"It's not only a sports movie with the usual big games and important shots, but also a coach movie, with inspiring locker room speeches and difficult moral decisions (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"It's slickly made entertainment (...) But all the cliches are relentlessly played out"
		Simon Braund Empire	"On paper a routine sports yarn. On screen, thanks to Jackson refusing to phone it in, far more satisfying than you might expect (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Chris Barsanti Slant	"All you need is some charismatically underachieving kids looking for a father figure (...) But at over two hours long, the windy and self-important 'Coach Carter' can’t even pull off this minimal challenge (…) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"
		Robert Koehler Variety	"Even factoring the pic’s unevenness and itch to preach, it reps a formal and thematic leap from the soft fare produced by sports-crazy Brian Robbins and Mike Tollin."
		J.R. Jones Chicago Reader	"Samuel L. Jackson is good (...) But screenwriters Mark Schwahn and John Gatins continually compromise the story's real-world bite by recycling scenes and situations from other [similar movies]"

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