The stirring true story of how a scrappy Latino high-school running team beat the odds is treated as a Kevin Costner vehicle first and foremost in “McFarland, USA,” a cross-cultural cross-country drama that feels descended from a long line of minority-underdog movies like “The Blind Side,” “Stand and Deliver,” “Pride” and the Oscar-winning documentary “Undefeated.” Predictable and predictably rousing, this inspirational sports pic earns points for itsbig-hearted portrait of life in an impoverished California farming town, the likes of which we too rarely see on American screens. But with its overriding emphasis on how Coach Costnerfits into that world, this fifth feature fromdirector Niki Caro (“Whale Rider,” “North Country”)never sheds its outsider perspective, ultimately emerging a well-intentioned mix of compassion and condescension. Even if thefamily-friendly Disney release commands a more diverse audience than most, it remains to be seen how much long-term box-office endurance it can muster.
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More than a decade after hanging up his baseball glove in “For Love of the Game,” Costner has settled nicely into his role as a sort of elder statesman of sports movies, having played an NFL general manager in last year’s “Draft Day” and now a high-school football coach named Jim White. It’s the fall of 1987, and Jim, having been recently fired from his job in Boise, Idaho, after getting a bit too rough with one of his players, has just accepted a lowly post teaching science and P.E. in the central Californian town of McFarland. And so, along with his wife, Cheryl (Maria Bello), and their two daughters, teenage Julie (Morgan Saylor) and preteen Jamie (Elsie Fisher), Jim relocates to this small agricultural community, whose population is poor and predominantly Mexican-American.
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Credited to feature first-timer Grant Thompson, as well as Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois — the duo who scripted 2006’s similarly fact-based, racially charged sports drama “Glory Road” — the script wastes no time slatheringon the culture-clash comedy. (“Are we in Mexico?” one daughterasks as they drive through their dumpynew neighborhood, right before they head overto a nearbyrestaurant and find themselves thoroughly perplexed by the taco menu.) For their part, Jim’s new neighbors and colleagues react to the cluelessgringo in their midst with a mix of amusement, scorn and hospitality, while his young male P.E. students in particular take great pleasure in addressing their coach by his hilarious surname (or “Blanco”).
The fish-out-of-water humor eases up slightly once Jim realizes how naturally fast and athletic his students are —running daily from school to the fields to pick crops in scorching heat will do that to you —and decides to start McFarland High’s first cross-country team. The principal (Valente Rodriguez) is skeptical at first, and so are the boys, who have never thought of themselves as winnersor imagined a better life for themselves. In keeping with most dramas of this sort, the most naturally gifted runner on the team, Thomas (Carlos Pratts), is also the most distant and hotheaded, mainly due to troubles at home. The team’s weakest link is Danny (Ramiro Rodriguez), the slowest and chubbiest of the three Diaz brothers on the team; no points for guessing who winds up saving the day at the end.
After a cross-country meet where McFarland comes in dead last while more seasoned, better-funded, all-white teams sneer from the sidelines, Jim begins to bondwith his boys, whether he’s leading them on exhausting hill-training runs, rolling up his sleeves and joining them in the fields, or being force-fed enchiladas by the indomitable Senora Diaz (a scene-stealing Diana Maria Riva). As the runners step up their pace, the script dealsin fairly blunt insights about the harsh economic conditions of lifeinMcFarland, where opportunities are scarce, fathers are regularly in and out of prison, and kids are expected to support their families through manual labor rather than going to college. Yet we also see how sturdy and close-knit most of these families are, and how lovingly they protect their own and help each other out —something from which Jim, a somewhat neglectful father of late, inevitably winds up learning a valuable lesson.
Not unlike “The Blind Side,” “McFarland, USA” is likely to generate some criticism for being the umpteenth film about a white guy productively intervening in the lives of underprivileged minority youth —a charge that has less to do with the facts of Jim White’sgenuinely inspiringlegacythan with the particular dramatic emphasis that Caro has given them here. A rare studio entertainment featuring a largely Latino ensemble, yet necessarily fronted by a big-name draw like Costner, “McFarland, USA” feels at once mildly progressive and unavoidably retrograde. Itpresents brief, obligatory snapshots of how the other half liveswithout ever seeming deeplyinvested, or even particularly interested, in what it’s showing us.
What’s really at stake throughoutthis movie is how Jim White and his family feel about it all: their discomfort at being forced to relocate toa low-income Hispanicneighborhood, followed by their gradual realization that, hey, these folksaren’t so bad after all, with their quinceaneras andlow-riding Chevysand free-range chickens. When Jim warilymistakes some of his new neighbors for a gangbangers, only to later learn they’re justdecent, salt-of-the-earth typeswho like to drive around in packs, you more or less know what kind of movie you’re watching —one that doesn’t trust the audience to be significantlymore enlightened than its protagonist.
None of which detractsfrom the appeal of Costner’s slylyenjoyablelead performance; at this point in his career, the 60-year-old actor is like a drywine thatgets better — which is to say,tougher and more leathery — with age. Always at the ready with a wisecrack, a challenge or a kind gesture, Costnerworks up a nice rapport with his appealing younger co-stars, especially the excellent Pratts, who brings a grave emotional intensity tothe role of the team’s most compelling individual. Bello is unsurprisinglysolidin a conventional supporting-wife role that gives her far too little to do.
Running a tadlong at 128 minutes, “McFarland, USA” scarcely needsits third-act swerve into near-tragedy, a twist that merely throws its tricky racial politics into troublingrelief. Where the picture excels is as a straightforward sports drama, and Caro delivers the satisfactions of the genre with unfussy verve. Running, it turns out, isone of the more cinematic physical activitiesout there; its simple logistics guarantee maximum visualclarity, plus ample opportunity for breathtakingoverhead shots (courtesy of d.p. Alan Arkapaw, whose 35mm lensing anduse of mostly natural light richly convey the heat and atmosphereof this desert town). When Thomas, Danny and their teammatespant their way toward the finish line, accompanied by the guitar-based strains ofAntonio Pinto’s score, it’s hard not tofeelyour pulse racing alongsidetheirs.
A sequencefeaturing the real Jim White and the members of his 1987 running team ends the picture on a classy, moving note.