Coach Carter is an earnest movie and like you can gather from the trailer, it's sort of like Lean on Me meets the White Shadow (in fact it was directed by White Shadow alum, Thomas Carter. He played Hayward on the show for you old White Shadow fans). What Friday Night Lights did for football, Coach Carter is hoping to do for basketball several months later.

Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to Richmond High School, his alma mater, as the new basketball coach. The team he inherits are losers on the court (only winning a measly four games in the previous season) and underachievers off the court (any of whom had trouble maintaining a 2.0. Over the course of the season, under the tough love of Coach Carter, the boys will learn lessons about life and love and winning not just at basketball but at life.

Yes, in the tradition of all the uplifting inner-city school movies before it (Lean on Me, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds), the movie does hit all the right notes as far as the message is concerned. The importance of staying in school, having a larger vision and setting high expectations for yourself are all there. But, led by Samuel L. Jackson under the direction of Thomas Carter, for the most part the clichés are kept in check. Although some of the storylines involving the players did venture into After School Special territory to me, especially the pregnancy storyline.

Joining Jackson is a team of young actors who manage to hold their own. Rob Brown is Kenyon Stone, a good student and a good guy in love with his girlfriend (played capably by singer Ashanti) but overwhelmed with her pregnancy. Rick Gonzalez is Timo Cruz, the student-athlete most likely to fall through the cracks and end up in jail. Antwon Tanner's got the jokes as Worm.

I guess my biggest problem with this movie, outside of several overly preachy moments, was the length. I did a total of 4 watch checks. The real conflict starts when the Coach sees the team's academic progress reports - and it's over an hour into the film before that happens. And there is another whole hour after that.