Undefeated

Undefeated

Do you remember which film won this year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature?  Was it the harrowing, heartbreaking Hell And Back Again, Danfung Dennis’ stunning portrait of a crippled Afghan War veteran trying to adjust to life back home while nursing the physical and psychological scars of the West’s Forever War on Terror?  Was it Pina, Wim Wenders’ stunning, groundbreaking 3D documentary about the late contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch?  Maybe Paradise Lost 3, the third in a series of films which fought for and eventually won the freedom of the West Memphis Three, victims of one of the USA’s worst miscarriages of justice?  How about If A Tree Falls: A Story Of The Earth Liberation Front which explores the grey areas between environmental activism and eco-terrorism?

No folks, none of these intelligent, groundbreaking, harrowing, heartbreaking, important movies were deemed worthy of the Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  Instead, displaying the kind of wisdom that saw an idiot Ivy Leaguer living out his cowboy fantasies elected President TWICE not to mention the release of a fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, the Academy bestowed the little gold man on Undefeated, a simplistic, pedestrian, feel-good affair, as treacly as molasses, which chronicles the trials of an underdog Memphis high school football team, the Manassas Tigers, as they try to make it to the Tennessee State Championships.  And, perversely, it’s hitting UK cinemas right in the middle of some minor sporting event going on in London, just when its likely potential audience is liable to be knocking one out in front of the synchronised swimming.

Like practically every feel-good fictional sports movie you’ve ever seen, Undefeated is yet another tale of a middle class, middle aged, white parental substitute, in this case Coach Bill Courtney in the Sandra Bullock role, trying to save the po’ black kids of Memphis from ghetto life with the help of God and football.  It’s no surprise that the Weinsteins and Diddy are already working on a purely fictional dramatic remake; the film already feels like scripted reality, its protagonists cliched characters.  There’s the thick but gifted player whose only way out of the ghetto, winning a college scholarship, is jeapordised by his lack of academic ability, forcing him to move in with his white assistant coach and family who tutor him and help him pass his exams.  There’s the straight-A student whose college career is threatened by a crippling injury which may mean he might NEVER PLAY FOOTBALL AGAIN!  There’s the bad boy with anger issues, just out of juvie hall, for whom football may just offer a last shot at redemption.  And there’s Coach Courtney himself, a middle aged, middle class businessman with daddy abandonment issues who spouts self-help mantras and is determined to make a difference!

If one moment defines Courtney’s view of the world and himself, it’s when he confides: “You think football builds character?  It does not.  Football reveals character.”  So does judicious editing dude.  No matter how you dress it up, no matter how many slow-motion action scenes you have in the rain or how many sub-Aaron Sorkin inspirational speeches you cram in, ultimately, it’s just a game. 

David Watson

Directed by:

Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin

Produced by:

Ed Cunningham, Seth Gordon, Daniel Lindsay, Rich Middlemas and Glen Zipper

Starring:

Montrail 'Money' Brown, O.C. Brown, Bill Courtney and Chavis Daniels

Genre:

Documentary

Language:

English

Runtime:

1 hour 53 minutes

Certificate:

12a

Rating:

2/5

Release date:

3^rd August 2012