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Kevin Costner has his second solid starring role in less than a month in McFarland USA.
B The sports movie of today often falls back on a familiar formula, one that I’ve dubbed “zeroes to heroes.” A team of underdog, hapless losers learns how to compete and eventually win, usually thanks to that one coach who really cares. Still, no matter how familiar the formula, occasionally a movie manages to put just enough of a fresh spin on it to make it interesting. In the case of McFarland,USA, that fresh spin is a healthy dose of salsa.
Kevin Costner has seemingly made a career out of sports movies, and, now that his “playing days” are over, he’s moved on smoothly into roles on the sidelines. Costner plays the aptly named Jim White, who was fired from a number of high school football coaching jobs for disagreements with school administrators. He gets what may be his last chance as a PE teacher at McFarland High School, most of whose students are the children of Hispanic farm workers. He notices that some of his students have a knack for running, so he persuades the school to start a cross-country team. Some of his runners have to help their parents out in the fields, so he has to balance their practice time with both school and work time.
As you might expect, the team starts out poorly, but gradually they start winning. And, as you also might expect, White learns to make the most of his last chance and to help repair his relationship with his own family. But McFarland, USA is not Hoosiers in track shoes. Jim White has to bridge a huge racial and cultural divide to connect with his team and winds up being assimilated in the adopted community in which he and his family now live. McFarland, USA is formulaic, but it’s also sincere, and White’s situation is far enough removed from the norm of movies like this to keep audiences interested, even though they know full well how it’s likely to end.
Continue reading on McFarland, USA: Mini-Review
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