Movie Review: Undefeated
Undefeated, which won this year’s Oscar for best documentary, showcases an inner-city high school football which hasn’t seen a winning season or a playoff game since 1899. The film highlights four main characters of Manassa High School, starting with Coach Bill Courtney, the big no nonsense coach who clearly loves the game and his team. Coach Courtney is consumed with the game of football and coaching his team from being the worst football team in the state of Tennessee to having an almost undefeated season. Coach Courtney delivers witty and hilariously commentary and evokes intense passion for his players as he teaches his team about character, discipline and team being first.
O.C. Brown is a talented tailback who can bulldoze through anyone on the field. Clearly this young man has a bright future in football but only one thing hinders that, his grades. We watch O.C. struggle with his grades and pass the ACT hoping that such a talent wouldn’t be wasted. I couldn’t help but like O.C as he’s genuinely a nice young man who wants to succeed in the game and in life. O.C’s life is similar to Michael Oher, whose story was told in The Blind Side, as he’s also from an impoverished upbringing taken in by a white family who helps tutor him so he can improve his grades.
Montrail “Money” Brown may lack in size on the football field but makes up for it in his passion for the game. Money is intelligently smart maintaining a 3.8 GPA but when he suffers a knee injury not only is his football career in jeopardy but also his prospects of getting into college as he stops going to school, endangering his grades. I hated to see this young man venture down the wrong path that could potentially hurt him in the long run.
Of course there always has to be the one, unusually talented player who can’t keep himself out of trouble. Chavis Daniels is a young man with a major attitude problem who is always ready to fight his coach or a teammate. Coach Courtney struggles to help Chavis who, like most of his teammates, lacks a father figure and discipline in his life. At one point it seems that this troubled teenager is beyond saving. But just when we’re ready to give up on him, he turns it around for the better.
A scene from the film “Undefeated.”
Undefeated is not just about the game of football but about the struggles of Coach Courtney and his boys as they wrestle with their own personal demons as they prepare themselves for the future. This to me wasn’t another clichéd inspirational sports film of underprivileged poor black kids struggling to overcome. I became emotionally attached to each player as I cheered when O.C. finally passed his ACT test, became teary when Chavis made his “uncommon” man speech and was an emotional wreck near the end with Montrail and his unexpected blessing regarding his future. Under the philosophical coaching of Coach Courtney and a tremendous comeback season, these boys learn to think outside of their circumstances and learn that football doesn’t build character but instead reveals it.
