Available at Amazon.com
Director
Sunu Gonera
Cast
Terrence Howard …….. Jim Ellis
Bernie Mac …….. Elston
Kimberly Elise …….. Sue Davis
Tom Arnold …….. Bink
Brandon Fobbs …….. Puddin Head
Alphonso McAuley …….. Walt
Regine Nehy …….. Willie
Nate Parker …….. Hakim
Kevin Phillips …….. Andre
Scott Reeves …….. Jake
Evan Ross …….. Reggie
The Movie
When it comes to making movies about racism in sports a generation ago, the gold standards are Remember the Titans and Glory Road. That’s not really saying much, as it could be argued both soft-pedaled the issue, but they’re both miles ahead of Pride. Like all three it’s “inspired by a true story,” but in this particular case it’s descent into mediocrity is hard, fast and unrelenting.
Telling the story of Jim Ellis (Terrence Howard), who created a swimming program for black youth in Philadelphia that still exists today, it follows Ellis from his days beginning the program and the group of young adults he first taught swimming too. Dealing with the racists of the local swimming community, including Ellis’s main rival Bink (Tom Arnold), the film is a look at a group of people overcoming adversity.
The problem is that the film has no real concept of how to have a message and not beat the viewer nearly to death with a club with it. If Howard would spend half of the film’s running time just saying the phrase racism’s bad mmkay’ the film would not lose a single thing at all. This is a shame, really, because the tale of Jim Ellis has a lot of potential in terms of developing a story for the silver screen. With a unique sport as swimming, the potential for a different type of film is there and readily available for first time director Sunu Gonera. The problem is that the script is so ham-fisted in getting its message across that it forgets a number of what would appear to be simple things.
None of the characters besides Ellis and Elston (Bernie Mac) are given actual characters, which is the film’s penultimate problem. Instead they’re a group of stock characters who are barely distinguishable from one another. If it wasn’t for the fact that they all at least look different from one another one could think that they just wrote the same character multiple times and added a woman to give it appeal to teenage girls. There’s no reason to care about them or feel bad for them except on a surface level. By the film’s finale, with the results easy to predict to boot, one imagines the sort of dialogue that had to have been cut from Arnold and Howard in order to get the more “powerful” moment of a mere handshake and a head nod.
“Sorry I was a racist. My bad.” — Bink
“It’s ok. We won anyways.” — Ellis
A/V QUALITY CONTROL
Presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 format with a widescreen format in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the film looks and sounds great. The film has a terrific soundtrack that comes through wonderfully and the 70s setting look good. It’s a wealth of color that comes through wonderfully.
The Extras
A Deleted Scene is included. It features Elston checking in on all the swimmers the night before the final meet. There are also Extended Scenes included as well. Several Music Montages are included as well as a Director’s Commentary from Gonera.
