Hot-Dogging on the Court and Lazy Off It

The basketball scenes are good--some of the most competent work at narrativizing the game I've seen in a movie. Well assembled, on and off-court stakes always apparent, actors who can play (including at least one former college and pro athlete), and where coaching, plays, style, rules and philosophies matter. Without the ball, however, the engineering of "Glory Road" is egregiously contrived and full of more clichés than history despite its based-on-a-true story.

The first conversation coach Don Haskins and player Bobby Joe Hill have pits them yelling at each other. Who writes this junk? And, pop tunes from the era over montages aside, there must be some corporate dictate that every Disney burger must feature blatant, constant, uninspired scoring throughout to manipulate and attune audiences to what's already obvious that they're supposed to be feeling. Dial it back, for crying out loud, and just try to tell a compelling story. Maybe ask more from the actors than two facial expressions, too. I've seen enough of John Lucas's furrowed brow now for a lifetime. I also didn't like some of the harsh lighting and yellow-dominant color grading for an old-timey-in-the-Sunbelt look.

Perhaps, worst of all is the continued placating to a presumed spectator that simplistically wants to hiss down past racism while celebrating how far we've come. That's how you get ridiculous scenarios such as a single basketball game stopping prejudice "forever." Sure, the 1965-66 Texas Western team was important, but it was also part of a long road towards integration, whether on or off the hardwood. The perennial-champions Boston Celtics, for example, had already fielded an all-black starting lineup in the NBA--featuring stars such as Bill Russell who had also left an impact on the college game. Northern college clubs had previously won NCAA titles in the 1960s with as many as four black starters, as well, who reportedly played an up-tempo style.

"Glory Road" might even be selling short its African-American student athletes. I haven't read the book the movie is based on, and college basketball doesn't seem to have kept player time logs back then, but just a glance at what there is of the team's stats from that year would suggest that the white players weren't seeing many minutes long before the championship match versus Adolph Rupp's Kentucky powerhouse and their Confederate-flag waving fans. While missing several games from a heart condition in the movie, for example, Willie Cager seems to have missed few to none in reality, started every game of the tournament, and played two more seasons thereafter. I'm guessing this is a consequence of the general theme of the picture of having as many characters as possible getting weepy over their white guilt and reforming into white savior tropes. I would've thought the head coach would be enough, but we must also endure an assistant, the wife, the other wife, a player, and, to an extent, even a booster. Talk about an echo chamber. More power to them if these Disney history lessons and morality tales actually reform anyone, but it's all too facile otherwise.