The Winning Season

There are sports movies and there are sports movies that are anything but what they were intended to be.  They start out with a genuine intent of creating excitement leading to a gripping finale but a few minutes after the start, one starts wondering whether it is really a sports movie or a mere excuse.  The Winning Season is a classic example of one such movie where director James C Strouse (a veteran of 1 movie as a director and 3 as a writer) goes through the classic convoluted method of trying to build a basketball movie and lands up mixing up too many issues in the bargain.  At the end of all of it, you have the Hungarian Goulash of all movies.

Bill (Sam Rockwell) has problems.  Chief among them being a drinking habit.  He is divorced and can meet his daughter Abby (Emma Roberts) once a week. And he will let nothing come in the way of his weekly meetings.  He will get there even if he is drunk.  He is currently biding his time as a waiter at a local joint but has a strong background in Basketball coz he was part of the only team at school who went onto play the state championship. So, when an opportunity presents itself, the school principle, Terry (Rob Corddry) is only too pleased to hand out a lease of life to our hero.  However, it is not the most enviable coaching assignment that one can look at.  Bill has to take the responsibility of coaching the school’s Girls team.  After a bit of thought, he accepts the assignment – always better to have a secure job as a coach than waiting tables eh Bill?

However, when he gets to his first day as coach, he realizes that there are all of 6 girls in the team – Molly (Shana Dowdeswell), Lisa (Shareeka Epps), Tamra (Meaghan Witri), Kathy (Emily Rios), Mindy (Melanie Hinkle) and Wendy (Rooney Mara).  And to make matters worse, one of them has her foot on a cast (for those who don’t know basketball, there are 5 players a side and typically at least 7 to 10 people on the bench with a rolling substitution rule).  After a while another girl joins in – Flor (Vanessa Gordillo) taking the bench strength to all of 1!!!  Shaken, Bill takes a few seconds to compose himself and gets down to business – the uphill task of training the girls to first start thinking basketball and then go through the effort of playing it and lastly playing it well enough to get through to a respectable season finish.

I have no idea why someone as talented as Sam Rockwell chose to work in a movie like TWS.  There is really nothing much for someone to look forward to in the movie.  Probably it was Sam’s dream to act as a coach in a sports movie and his wish has finally been fulfilled!!!!  James Strouse doesn’t do much to make a name for himself.  Maybe he was interested in only making a few hundred thousand green ones and then settle down in the subcontinent by leading an inexpensive lifestyle.  The girls try and do a sincere job.  I can say for sure that they play basketball better than most of our Bollywood heroes and heroines do (Bouncing the ball in one place is not basketball – its bouncing!!!).  Probably the only good thing about TWS is the fact that the end is not really predictable.  That works well for it marginally – and pushes the rating from a 3 to a 3.5 on 10.