Pride

Pride (Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac, Tom Arnold) —  A familiar story about a group of kids, a devoted coach and an impossible situation that takes us to the big game, Pride will bring tears and little mystery except whether it ends like Rocky and Friday Night Lights or like Remember the Titans and Glory Road.  The coach, Jim Ellis, is played by Terrence Howard, an Academy Award nominee for Hustle and Flow and an ensemble member of Crash.  Having been an African-American varsity swimmer at Cheney State in 1964 when discrimination was common (a year before Don Haskins fielded an all-black team in the Final Four at Texas – El Paso as told in Glory Road), Ellis goes to Philadelphia 10 years later seeking a teaching job at a private academy.  When rebuffed by the bigoted administrator (played one dimensionally by Tom Arnold), he settles for a menial job at a condemned recreation center in the inner city.  The few kids who go there just use the basketball hoop for entertainment but end up inside and try the pool.  The rest is predictable as Ellis turns the troubled, well-meaning youth into a team that eventually makes their way to the big regional tournament in Baltimore.  Bernie Mac, who recently announced he was going to stop doing stand-up comedy, plays it serious here as the director of the soon-to-be-closed rec center.  As predictable as this is, you’ll shed a tear or two as the kids find their inner selves and the coach gets retribution for his youthful snubs.  Howard is reaching the top ranks of African-American actors, and this film, which will not do well at the box office, is a logical step.  He needs a comedy to help his credits and then the kind of role where he proves he can “carry” a movie to replace the likes of Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson, who are both getting older.