Marketing and publicity are crucial when it comes to DVD releases and Undefeated could suffer if anyone out there judges movies by their covers. The sleeve features a group of large African American gridiron players who, from a distance, appear to be men. They are holding their helmets aloft in a victory pose above the title, Undefeated. Who wants to watch a doco about an all-conquering American gridiron team? I wouldn’t, but that’s not what Undefeated is about.
This reviewer was fortunate enough to see directors Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin’s documentary at the Melbourne International Film Festival earlier this year and so hadn’t sighted the DVD cover before viewing the movie. I came in cold to this – yes, I’m afraid I’ll have to say it now – heart-warming story, winner of the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
In the tradition of all high quality documentaries, especially sports documentaries (Senna, Fire in Babylon) – and even the great sports movies (Rocky, Hoosiers) – Undefeated is not about football. It’s about living your values, learning from your mistakes, and understanding what true success is.
The Manassas Tigers are a high school football team from Memphis. They haven’t made the play-off stage of their competition for 110 years. The disadvantaged school is full of African American kids and the underfunded football program at least provides a focus for some of them, keeping them on track (just) with their studies and out of gangs. But opposition schools regularly smash them on the field. They’re so bad, in fact, that up-state teams pay the Tigers to travel north as a practice team for them to pummel.
Volunteer coach Bill Courtney, however, sees potential for the Tigers in the 2009 Summer/Fall football season. Three of their better players, ‘O.C’, ‘Montrail’ and ‘Chavis’, have all reached senior year and their talents are ready to explode. Courtney believes that if he can just keep them focused and bring the other team members along with them, the Tigers will have a chance to make the play-offs. Maybe even win one.
The documentary tracks Courtney’s motivations, joys and heartbreaks, while also telling O.C, Montrail and Chavis’s stories. The highly talented O.C. can only stay on the team if he keeps passing exams (which will also put him in line for a scholarship); light-framed Montrail is shooting for an academic scholarship, but is desperate to help the Tigers to success this year; and linebacker Chavis, a boy from one of the worst of the many disadvantaged backgrounds portrayed, must try to stay on the team without killing anybody.
In many ways the film is a simple against-the-odds tale. But Undefeated manages to be so much more. It is a deep, emotionally charged study of young men who could be excused for giving up on life, but who find within themselves resources that might carry them into a future full of hope. And they find these resources through the agency of volunteer coach Courtney, the most ordinary of ordinary men, whose simple, heartfelt love of football and his charges manages to create the kind of change in these boys that all manner of multi-million-dollar social programs could never provide.
Undefeated’s story and characters are gripping. The filmmakers are clearly versed in the capacity to make people forget they’re being filmed. In fact, in a strange reversal, some of the ‘performances’ they managed to capture were so vivid and emotionally raw that this reviewer wondered if they were scripted. Perhaps to some extent the cameras modified the boys’ and coach Courtney’s behavior. If so, the documentary brought out the best of their humanity. Yet the cameras also captured their violence, mistakes and stupidity. Still, it’s testimony to Undefeated’s strength that, as well as being utterly compelled by these characters’ journeys, this reviewer was also moved to think about the sociological impact of documentaries!
In a society that deifies the individual, Undefeated shows that life is a team sport and that success is not points scored or games won. It transcends sporting, cultural and national boundaries to become a film for anyone who wants to believe that we can, through genuinely caring about each other, make a better world.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
Undefeated
Directed by Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin
USA, 2011, 109 minutes
Out now on DVD
Extras: Theatrical trailer
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Rated PG
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