The Oscar voters in the best documentary feature category surprised us (again) when they handed out the award last month.
Up to then, the most widely discussed nominees were “Pina,” much loved by art mavens (and admired for its terrific use of 3-D for capturing dance), and “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory,” an installment in the hard-hitting series about the recently released West Memphis Three, accused killers in a notorious murder case.
Those movies didn’t win. The movie that won was “Undefeated,” a chronicle of a beleaguered high school football program (in, coincidentally, Memphis). When I finally saw “Undefeated” a couple of weeks ago, the Oscar competition became a no-brainer. In Oscar eyes, the other films never had a chance.
“Undefeated” is an unabashedly stirring account of a dogged, sometimes obsessive volunteer coach named Bill Courtney. He owns a small hardwood company, and has a supportive wife and kids, yet it’s clear that his time and energy are directed toward the underprivileged football players at Manassas High, a perennial doormat.
The program makes its budget by hiring itself out to bigger schools that need a guaranteed win on the schedule. Needless to say, Courtney’s tough-love approach turns things around in that department.
As documentaries tend to do, “Undefeated” picks out a handful of players to focus on: a frequently suspended discipline case; a hard-working kid who dreams of college but faces a serious setback midway through the season; and a big lug with college-level talent but disastrously low grades (you have to blink hard to realize this isn’t a scripted story out of “The Blind Side”).
The set-up is almost too perfect; Courtney’s background even includes an absent father, a situation shared by so many of his players, and this is proposed as the driving factor behind his refusal to quit on players who are sometimes ready to quit on themselves.
We are reminded at times that it’s a documentary only by the fact that not everything works out as planned. Directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin are shrewd in their selection of revealing moments, and in pacing the movie through a single season of Manassas football.
They spend a little time on the context of the neighborhood (when the Firestone factory closed up, this part of north Memphis went into steep decline), but mostly keep the focus on a coach and a group of kids who are fighting to keep it together.
“Undefeated” is especially powerful in capturing turning points: There are make-or-break moments, or so they seem, moments when somebody might give up and get lost in failure or stand up and push forward.
Life is more complicated than that, but this movie does a moving job of suggesting the value in just keeping on.
“Undefeated” (3½ stars)
The winner of the 2011 best documentary feature Oscar, this powerful film follows the underprivileged football team from Manassas High in Memphis, whose dogged coach goes the extra mile with his players. This one’s hard to resist, and it suggests that perseverance may be the key to success, after all.
Rated: PG-13 for language.
Showing: Varsity.
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