An average movie

Even though I didn’t have some huge expectations, since this movie was directed by Niki Caro and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, in the sub-genre of the inspirational sports tale based on a true story, to be honest, it was hardly original but it was still fairly entertaining. Indeed, even if Kevin Costner is not the box-office draw he used to be, the guy is still quite charismatic and he was a fine choice to play this coach. However, even though they spent enough time to show that he had absolutely no experience in coaching a cross-country team, they didn’t really display how he became such a great coach after all. And, yet, the main issue was in fact that they spent too much time on Kevin Costner’s character and not enough on the actual runners. Seriously, I don’t think I would be able to name all the 7 runners even though I saw the movie just yesterday. I mean, 3 of them were pretty much reduced to the ‘Diaz brothers’, except for Danny whose only characteristic was that he was a little bit chubby (in fact, even though the real Danny Diaz did really help winning the title back in ’87, he wasn’t overweight at all which shows how poorly developed these characters were). Concerning the rest of the McFarland community, well, it wasn’t much better I’m afraid. Indeed, the movie started with a string of negative Latino stereotypes and ended with another string of Latino stereotypes which were at least positive this time. And, yet, in spite of its flaws, it was still a touching story. Indeed, the life in McFarland seemed rather rough and the future pretty much hopeless for these kids but, thanks to this sport and this coach, it did open so many doors for them and it gave this community something to be really proud of. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was fairly generic, I have to admit that it was still a decent inspirational sports tale and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.