The Winning Season

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

A high school sports motivational movie. What makes this one nice is that it's low key, it's not showy and there are no big motivational speeches or forced drama and impossible odds. It's simple and believable and avoids pretty much all the clichés of the genre, a pleasant surprise.

This time we are in the world of girls basketball. The coach is the great Sam Rockwell, who excels in playing washed up losers. Now of course he becomes a better person and learns to understand his own daughter through coaching these girls, that was a given, but man he's till on the booze and smoking pot right up until the last 20 minutes. Infact in the last game he has to coach via phone because they will arrest him if he enters the venue. That was a nice and funny touch.

As for comedy the movie is not laugh out loud funny, like the trailer is trying to make it look. It's more understated. That's the general vibe for the whole film actually. It works well.