Samuel L. Jackson returns to form behind a long string of disappointing performances (don't bother with "In My Country") to play an ethically minded basketball coach at a tough inner city high school in Richmond, California.
Inspired by events lived by real-life basketball coach Ken Carter in 1999, the openly didactic and lengthy movie succeeds via sound performances from its group of hearty young actors that include pop star Ashanti, Rick Gonzalez, Rob Brown, and Robert Ri'chard as coach Carter's devoted son.
Coach Carter's concise attempts to teach his Richmond Oilers basketball team the importance of mutual respect and scholastics through discipline on and off the basketball court resonates well in today's America of unaccountability. There are worse ways Sam Jackson can entertain you; this time he plays an upstanding guy with a heart.
