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Film review

'Pride' founders with overdone story

The film, inspired by the true story of an inner-city swim team, has moments that will draw in the audience, but the tale is just too predictable.

By Marty Clear, Times correspondent
Published March 22, 2007

Pride is all we've come to expect from formulaic underdog movies.

Familiar to the point of being trite.

Dialogue that is often cliched.

Predictable plot turns.

Yet, chances are you probably still will cheer for the good guys to win the big athletic contest at the end.

You'll feel anxious when they seem to fall behind, and when they suffer a key injury at a critical moment.

You'll feel heartened when the condescending villains finally give the good guys some grudging respect, and you may get a bit misty- eyed as inspirational music swells to a crescendo as the credits roll.

Pride is just like so many of these tales, but it gets a bit of a boost because it's inspired by the true story of a coach who formed a competitive swim team in an inner-city recreation center where he still coaches today.

It gets a bigger boost from an engaging cast led by Terrence Howard as Jim Ellis. We first meet him in the early 1960s, when he's a collegiate swimmer who has to deal with institutionalized racism.

Then we jump ahead 10 years, and Ellis, facing slightly more subtle racism, reluctantly takes a job at a decrepit recreation center. There, he coaxes kids in from the basketball courts and into a pool he has refurbished.

He trains them until they become a regional powerhouse swim team and, in the process, bring pride to the downtrodden neighborhood.

In addition to Howard Crash, Hustle & Flow, who's understated but still intense, the cast is led by Bernie Mac, in a surprising turn as a custodian at the center. All the young and relatively unknown actors who play the swimmers are appealing as well.

Besides the predictability and the strained dialogue, the big downside is that swimming doesn't make for compelling cinema, or at least it doesn't in the hands of first-time director Sunu Gonera. Even the climactic race is confusing, and it's difficult to tell which half-submerged character is which.

Sitting in the theater, you may get wrapped up in the story of the noble but downtrodden ghetto kids earning their props. But the hackneyed story prevents Pride from leaving a lasting impact.

Marty Clear can be reached at mclear@tampabay.rr.com.

Review

Pride

Grade: C+

Director: Sunu Gonera

Cast: Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac, Tom Arnold

Screenplay: Kevin Michael Smith, Michael Gozzard, J. Mills Goodloe and Norman Vance Jr.

Rating: PG; thematic material, language including some racial epithets, and violence

Running time: 104 min.

[Last modified March 21, 2007, 11:14:35]