Takes itself way too seriously

Don't Believe the Hype

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The documentary, Undefeated, is about a film that reveals and builds up a person's character. Daniel Lindsey and T.J. Martin did an outstanding job directing this inspirational movie. This documentary is about three deprived young student-athletes from a town called Memphis. They all have their differences and struggles with football, school, and families. But after a volunteer coach comes in and helps out the team and these three athletes, things start changing for Manassas High School. Manassas High School in North Memphis was a school that wasn't very successful in football. Other teams would take advantage of this program and basically use them for practice. When Bill Courtney arrived as a volunteered coach, he changed the ability and attitudes of the athletes he had to deal with. Not only did he help this team turn into an athletic team but he also helped build this team into an academic team as well. There are a few athletes that are being focused on in this documentary that have struggles of their own. One athlete named O.C. Brown, was a strong left tackle for Manassas. He was one of the main star players on the team. He has many scholarship opportunities for college, but struggles with keeping his grades up, and scoring high on his tests. Another athlete named Montrail, also known as "Money", was an offensive lineman. He is pushing to get an academic scholarship but struggles because he suffers a knee injury and stops going to school. The last main athlete in this film is a returning player that just got out of Juvy, named Chavis. Chavis learns to overcome a lot of things in high school and his anger management is the main one. He is an explosive and talented linebacker but his temper sets him off at times that are unacceptable to the team and to the coaches. Bill Courtney, the volunteer coach for Manassas High School, was a life changer for these young men and for the rest of the football team. He brought passion, and heart into these boys. He taught them life lessons, and preached that it's not only about being an athlete, but being a student before an athlete. He did not care about the wins or the losses, but he was more concerned about revealing the character out of these young men; one of his main objectives was helping each other grow together as a team and also grow individually. He seen the outcomes he had on the athletes, and it was all love from Courtney and his ability to help these boys grow up and overcome adversity and their struggles. This film gives great detail and goes in depth about the real feelings of the athletes and coach. The camera men get great footage of the external and internal emotions out of the coach and the athletes. With that being said, throughout most of the documentary the camera men are actually holding the camera. It makes the film better, I believe because if it was just a movie being caught on a standing camera, you wouldn't get the same emotional touch from the characters. It's more of a live perspective and makes you feel like it is not even a movie, and it's just something that's happening in the moment. This documentary gives actual features and behind the scenes of an everyday life at Manassas high school and the football program. This gives you a better understanding and helps you grasp the details about the film. The target audience for this documentary would be coaches, players, and anyone involved in an athletic program. This also could be for anyone who wants to watch an inspirational film. Even if you weren't ever involved in football or another athletic program, this movie would show you that kids not only struggle with school, sports, and football but also with outside complications. It shows that one person, which is Bill Courtney in this film, can impact and help build character out of a hopelessness athlete and motivate them to be a better player, teammate, and student. Overall this 10 out of 10-star movie did an astounding job at showing us that this film was an Oscar- winning high school football documentary. From showing the background of where each of the main athletes in the movie came from and what their home-life was like, to parts of the film that keep you emotionally engaged by coach to player. This documentary is one for the books, and I would totally recommend seeing it. You will never get uninterested, and you will always be entertained by something passionate throughout the film. If you're looking for a gratifying sports flick, Undefeated is the way to go.

The football team of Manassas High School in Memphis, Tennessee hasn't been to the playoffs since 1899 (that is not a typo). We are surprised until we get a look at the team. They are teenagers who are disorganized, hot-headed, self-centered and completely focused on everything but the game itself. That isn't a dig at them personally; the film provides backgrounds to help us understand them as human beings. Based on their frustrations and poor self-esteem, we aren't surprised when their overly dedicated coach Bill Courtney frequently loses his cool.Undefeated is a documentary that follows this team in a way that no fiction film ever could. Given to a Hollywood screenwriter, it would have become a forgettable formula underdog story. The kids on the team, all 17 and 18 years old, come from inner-city neighborhoods that offer few opportunities. Familial support is at a minimum because most of the players have fathers who are either absent, dead or have adopted a revolving door policy with the family. At one point, the coach asks for a show of hands, asking how of the guys on the team have a parent who went to college: one hand. Then he asks how many have two parents who went to college: no hands. Finally he asks how many have a parent in jail: nearly everyone raises their hands. What becomes apparent is that Bill Courtney, a good man who steps far beyond the call of duty, is the first symbol of male influence that these kids have ever had.Coach Courtney understands a little about their dilemma. He lost his own father at a young age and sees their isolation and their frustration. He tries to get them to understand that they are better than their circumstances and their dispiriting environment. We see their surroundings. Manassas, as depicted in the film, once held a place of prominence. It was a thriving, working-class area due to the big Firestone plant, but when that closed down, so too did the town. Businesses don't grow there, and what we see are shadows of a formerly proud neighborhood, now run-down and forgotten.The film follows a handful of the team members and shows the influence that Coach Courtney has on them. Most of the kids have sour attitudes, get into fights (often with each other) and storm off in a huff. What is impressive is the way the coach stays after them. One kid, named Money, storms out of the school auditorium, outside, off school grounds, and down the road. The coach follows him, trying to reason with him and eventually retrieves his truck to catch up with him.The film focuses on several of the students but Courtney remains the central focus. He's a hard working man who has been coaching at Manassas for six years and is often frustrated by his team's inability to want to better themselves. His dedication takes a toll on his home life because he is beginning to miss opportunities with his own children. One very strong scene takes place at the dinner table where he and his wife discuss the problems with his lack of attention to his family.The film resembles "Hoop Dreams" in that it focuses less on the sport than on the lives of those involved. This one focuses on the coach more than the players. Courtney often loses his temper, and the camera moves from him to his players seated in chairs, lopped-over as if they simply don't care. His dedication to them eventually comes back out on the playing field and the movie has a very happy ending that made me smile (one development made me tear up).Undefeated made me realize just how often we focus on the negative. How many news stories are flooded with blood and violence and people doing horrible things? That's why documentaries are so invaluable, because we get inside the mind and the motivations of people like Bill Courtney. Courtney is a dedicated man who is attempting to do what is necessary to change a young man's life. He does that, and we hope that the seeds of his goodwill will last.

First off, I know very little about American Football. I know the rules pretty much but I am English and it doesn't exactly get a lot of coverage in Europe.Anyway, what this film is really about is an indefatigable coach and a bunch of kids living in a tough environment who have found someone who cares about how well they do on and off the pitch. It really is that simple. The winning of football games is an irrelevance in my opinion as this is about the mentality that he instills in his charges and how they take that faith and do great things with it. There are no great production values and most of the footage is hand-held but is well edited and tells the story very well. **SPOILER** One wonders if the following of the team's successes (by the film makers) was a happy coincidence...or whether they were buoyed by the presence of the film unit thus effecting their performances. That, maybe, is another discussion about the empiricism of documentary film making. But, whatever, this is a fantastic documentary and should definitely be added to your watch list.

I watch a lot of movies; I mean A LOT of movies. I've been very interested in the art of communicating stories in a meaningful way since the days of "Grave Marauders" back in the 5th grade. I've acted in quite a few plays, attended an acting school in Hollywood, worked at Pixar, etc. So I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on how to discriminate between good and bad films. Also, in addition to growing up without a father, experiencing first-hand the struggles that come as a result, I also had the privilege to serve as a School Resource Officer for a couple of years. That experience gave me the opportunity, in a greater social context, to see the fallout of young men growing up without fathers. Day after day I witnessed young men with incredible potential, sabotage their own lives as they struggled to figure out who they are, what it means to be a man, and do their best to figure out how to become one.In my opinion, young men growing up with absent fathers is one of the most damaging social epidemics of our time, the consequences of which leave devastating and painful scars that negatively impact every single aspect of our culture. To aggravate matters more, the very source of the problem (the absence of strong, positive male leaders) is the very reason why progress toward the solution is so slow. It is very difficult to find men of character who are willing and strong enough to endure the friction and frustration that comes as a result of attempting to mentor these frustrated and lost, yet very bright and talented young men.How inspiring it was to have this film introduce us to a true man and leader like Bill Courtney. I absolutely love that the film did not paint him to be someone he is not; that they showed us his moments of weakness and frustration as well as his moments of victory, strength, and success. Too often, I think that men shrink from opportunities to serve in meaningful ways because we are led to believe that we have to be perfect; that we have to have it all together. The lives of the young men he coached are forever changed in fantastic and positive ways that, had he not stepped up, would otherwise never have happened.The following point is the greatest thing of all to me: Not only have their lives been enriched as a result of Bill Courtney being involved, but the world becomes a better place as well. These young men will go on to have a positive impact on their families and communities and, even if it's only in a small way, the world becomes a better place; all because Bill Courtney cared about those young men. He wasn't perfect; he got mad and frustrated and cursed and fought. But he was present; he was there. He cared for those young men, and they knew it.It just goes to show that, when a strong leader, even an imperfect one, takes the time to help rebuild the broken emotional foundation of a young man, and teaches them how to recognize and appreciate their own value, it empowers that young man to unleash his talents, gifts, skills, abilities, goodness, and potential upon the world… making it a better place.This movie is FANTASTIC and is by far one of my very favorites. It is a MUST SEE.