Rhea Perlman is a short white woman who knows little about coaching basketball, but she gets hired anyway to coach a pathetic all-black boys' basketball team at a tough inner-city New York City high school. At first it is clear she is not up to the job and the players don't respect her, but she is determined and eventually turns the team around, earning the players' admiration. Once the team starts winning games, she helps the players out in other areas of their lives, sometimes getting in over her head. At the beginning of the movie, Perlman wanted to get out of education and open a restaurant. Would the players change her mind?
Overall, I liked the movie, though I got worried about two-thirds of the way through when one of the players got in trouble with the law and it appeared the movie would not recover. Perlman was likeable but tough, and a number of players were easy to like after I got used to them. There was apparently lots of bad language, most of which was edited out in the version I saw.
*********** SPOILER ****************: Lots of movies like this go for the stereotypical happy ending where the team wins the big game. They come close, but it takes a lot of courage to go for a happy ending when the team loses at the end--even though it was the championship. This movie succeeds in that, but after the big letdown, it takes work to get there.
Overall, I liked the movie, though I got worried about two-thirds of the way through when one of the players got in trouble with the law and it appeared the movie would not recover. Perlman was likeable but tough, and a number of players were easy to like after I got used to them. There was apparently lots of bad language, most of which was edited out in the version I saw.
*********** SPOILER ****************: Lots of movies like this go for the stereotypical happy ending where the team wins the big game. They come close, but it takes a lot of courage to go for a happy ending when the team loses at the end--even though it was the championship. This movie succeeds in that, but after the big letdown, it takes work to get there.