The Mighty Macs

Tim Chambers' The Mighty Macs is agreeable and inoffensive, G-rated, and will probably be a hit with young kids. I didn't much care for it, but I don't think this movie was made for me. It's a movie for people who just want to see a nice little uplifting story. Nothing wrong with that. I just would have wanted some originality, or at least one interesting character to go along with everything else.

"Inspired by a true story", the movie is about Cathy Rush, a real life girls college basketball coach, who is played in the film by Carla Gugino. As the film opens, it's 1971, and Cathy has recently married to an NBA referee named Ed Rush (David Boreanaz). Ed is "old fashioned", to put it mildly, and chauvinistic to be more blunt. He thinks his new wife's place is at the home, and is not really supportive about the idea of Cathy taking a job as the new basketball coach at Immaculata College. As is tradition in these kind of formula films, the school has a last place girls basketball team, as well as other problems, such as the school only having one ball, and the gym has recently burned down. The President of the school, Mother St. John (Ellen Burstyn) warns Cathy not to expect much. Naturally, she will defy all expectations, mold the girls into a championship team in a few montages, and they will head for the big championship game, bringing honor to the school, which is in danger of being closed down.

We don't find out much about the girls Cathy coaches, or really what made this team so special that the previous teams obviously lacked. I don't expect originality in these kind of underdog stories, but some individuality is often nice. The girls who make up the team are pretty much treated as a singular unit in Chambers' screenplay. There's also Sister Sunday (Marley Shelton), a young nun who is having a crisis of faith early on when we first meet her. Supposedly becoming the assistant coach to the basketball team helps her with this problem, as we never hear about it again, and she seems perfectly fine. This is the kind of movie that knows the formula, and knows what notes to hit, but it oddly keeps on skipping over the stuff that should come between.

Take Cathy's husband, Ed, for example. For the first half of the film, he keeps on voicing his displeasure that his wife is working, and that he never gets to see her. Tension is established in the marriage, and we wait to see how it is resolved. Lo and behold, it's apparently resolved off camera (or in another draft of the screenplay), as with very little explanation, Ed suddenly becomes much more supportive of his wife's dream after a simple phone call where she tells them her team won. From that point on, he's showing up at all the games, and cheering them on. It feels like something is missing in this character. We have a beginning and an end, but he's missing a middle where he's supposed to be wavering between his old ideals, and slowly starting to accept those of his wife.

And yet, I can't really hate the movie. It's so darn eager to please, and the performances are actually pretty good. It's the kind of movie where you hate being a cynic towards it, but you can't help it, because what's up on the screen is likable and all, it's just not very good. The movie is missing that special something that a formulaic sports film needs to stand out. Things like strong dialogue, or strong characters, or maybe an unexpected turn from the rigid and predictable plot. This never happens, so The Mighty Macs ends up being nice and all, but really quite bland. There's just nothing to get excited about here.

Like I said before, little kids, and people who just want to see a harmless movie where nothing really bad happens will no doubt enjoy this. I'm not disappointed that I saw this movie, really. It's just nothing you need to race out and see at the theater. Luckily, this should be appearing on DVD fairly soon.

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