MOVIE REVIEW: Undefeated Is An Underdog Story That Feels Like The First Time

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary, "Undefeated" doesn't really break any new ground, but the film almost makes you think that you're seeing this for the first time. It's a true underdog story, made all the more touching by the fact that it's a documentary.

The film follows a high school football team that takes the term underdog to a new level. In inner-city Memphis, Tennessee, that team is the Manassas Tigers, an all African-American team with a white volunteer coach Bill Courtney (who, let's just say, lives in a very different part of town).

Apparently, the team had never won a single playoff game in 110 years, and other teams would actually pay the Tigers to come to their schools and play against them just so they could warm up for the season ahead.

The best thing about Undefeated is no one is the usual stereotype, so the triumphs and losses feel that much more real and that much more bitter. Courtney, who fires up the team like a minister rousing his congregation from the pulpit, sees that most of them are fatherless and recalls his own boyhood that was defined by an absent father. He coached many of the seniors since they were freshmen, so the time may be ripe for them to actually have a winning streak. He shows them endless patience and continues to believe in them even when they no longer believe in themselves, yet there is a price: his devotion to the team takes time away from his own family, and the aforementioned patience he has to show the teens is often used up before he gets home.

The players themselves also refuse to resemble either extreme: there are no noble sufferers here, yet neither are there shouting, mindless young thugs that we often see. We see them and their town, warts and all. The film focuses on a core group that includes O.C. Brown, the incredibly tall, muscular, and ferociously talented player whose low academic scores may prevent him from getting to the big leagues, Chavis Daniels, who was just released from juvenile detention, and whose inability to control his anger may keep him off the field, and Montrail “Money” Brown, the small but determined one whose college dreams may be derailed by an unexpected twist of fate.

Some of the turns in events are straight out of other movies, such as when Courtney brings Brown to his home in order to be tutored. Racial elements such as these and the history of the town and its collapse are touched upon but not really fully explained. This is because the movie is essentially all about the complex interaction between the coach and the team, and all the emotional roller coaster of their journey.

We'll see if Hollywood can do just as good a job: the Weinstein Company has already bought the rights, with Sean “Diddy” Combs as executive producer.

Grade: B+