I was all set to dislike “Pride,” yet another “inspired-by” sports movie in a genre fast growing as unwatchable as your average cheap horror film. A plucky team of African-American swimmers overcomes all in search of a championship?
And then there I was, rooting for a plucky team of black swimmers. “Pride” has a sly, sexy way of overcoming inherent filmmaking clichés and winning over its audience.
Part of it is the way star Terrence Howard says nothing when other coach-figures would shout. Part of it is confident filming of the swim scenes, enhancing what is already an action sport with clean light and rousing sounds.
And part of it is simply subverting the expected. Turns out Howard’s biggest battle with his newbie swimmers is their own racism – the kids make a joke out of losing, and threaten to make a career out of resentment. Howard’s Coach Jim has to give the kids a new story to tell about themselves, and “Pride” proves to be good material.
“Pride” opens with Jim Ellis as a young high school swimmer in North Carolina. At a meet crammed with screaming bigots, all the white competitors refuse to race him, and he ends up fighting security guards. Fade to funky Philadelphia in 1974, 10 years later, as Ellis looks for a job. He gets a “wrap up” position at a rundown community rec center, scheduled to close soon because no one uses anything but a worn hoop in the yard.
I say funky Philly because a brick-house soundtrack and better-than-’70s clothing style give “Pride” an attractive sheen. It’s Mark Spitz meets “Shaft,” and the combination makes the inevitable training montages seem less hokey.
Ellis cleans up the ruined indoor pool, of course, and soon gets help from Bernie Mac, playing a despondent janitor. Bernie Mac doesn’t exactly do despondent, at least not for long, and a goofy chemistry between Howard and big Bernie adds charm to “Pride.”
The swimming misfits include unknowns Nate Parker, Regine Nehy, Kevin L. Phillips and Alphonso McAuley. They are, of course, battling skeptical parents, pimps and drug dealers on the street, and their hatred of Speedo- style racing trunks.
Tom Arnold chews some scenery as the headmaster of a local private school, utterly racist and unconvincingly mean.
The dialogue from a team of four writers is stilted, cut and pasted from many other sports/triumph movies. What works best is when director Sunu Gonera lets Howard play it cagey, without any words at all, as when he waits for his charges to demand their first meet rather than making a big speech about jumping in hostile waters.
I’m still not sure if Howard will prove a major leading man. As in “Crash” and “Hustle & Flow,” he has the tendency to tear up at the most minor provocation. Here it serves him well, making him a different kind of tough coach. But the technique, or the habit, may get old after a time.
Seen under the cloud of a bad mood, “Pride” may not rise above the sports-movie problems of “Invincible” or “Glory Road.” But it’s a fine family movie, and with spring break coming up for many Denver teens, testing the temperature of the “Pride” pool is a decent way to spend an afternoon.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-954-1686 or at mbooth@denverpost.com; keep up with film at denverpost.com/movies.
“Pride”
PG for some mild profanity|1 hour, 45 minutes|SPORTS DRAMA|Directed by Sunu Gonera; written by Mike Gozzard, J. Mills Goodloe and Norman Vance Jr.; starring Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac, Kimberly Elise, Brandon Fobbs, Alphonso McAuley and Regine Nehy|Opens today at area theaters.
