Movie Review on Glory Road

Glory road is an American sports drama film which is directed by Mr. James Gartner. It was released in the year of 2006 and it is based on a true story. It is the story of Texas Western Coach Don Haskins, who led the first all black starting line up for a college basketball team to the NCAA championship in 1966. The film was a co-production between Walt Disney Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Texas Western Productions and Glory Road Productions. The movie focued on racisim as a topic and showed that, hardwork, teamwork and determination can make a path for success and attainment of goals.

Glory road is directed by Mr. James Gartner. He is one of the most highly regarded directors in the industry. He has mastered the art of impacting the audience with storytelling that is visually as well as emotionally rich.

He won the Outstanding Directoral Achievment in Commercials in the year of 1994 and 1989.

Glory road was released on 13th January 2006 all over America. The writer of the film are Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois and the stars include Josh Lucas, Derek Luke, Astin Nichols, Evan Jones and many more. The movie is able to capture the attention of the readers as the movie is not very long and covers only that scenes which are related to the theme of the movie. The movie is nearly one hour and fifty eight minutes long.

Glory road is related to sports as it depicts how Texas Western Coach Don Haskins, led his team to the NCAA championship in 1966. The movie shows the struggle faced by the team players of the college basketball team. Even the movie has an element of drama as the film shows a real life issue. The film presented a life situation and potrayed relastic characters.

Glory road showed that enough bonding and exposure can defeat racism. A team formed out of nothing stood against all challenges and triumphed. The importance of hard work, team work and self discipline was portrayed. The message of glory road is very deep and builds throughtout the film teaching all us that racism in the 20th century was very severe and many people faced it. The movie shows how Don Haskins became the first division college basketball coach to ever start five black players in a game of basketball. Even though Don Haskins and his players received death threats, they always worked hard throughtout the whole season with hunger and passion and ultimately were able to achive their goal. So the movie makes the audience learn that if a person has set the goal and he/she is passionate about it, he/she will surely succeed in any difficult condition. The movie also tells the audience that nothing is impossible, if the aim/goal is set, the person has achieved half of his goal. So everyone should think positive and should try to make reasonable and achieveable goals throughtout their life.

After watching the whole movie, I could understand that Glory road is much more than a basketball story. It is a civil rights story where the basketball court becomes the bases for removing racisim. The bond between the group of young black players is inspirational as well as humorous. The film is inspiring as it tells the audience that nothing is impossible. If you are able to set reasonable and achievable goals and if you have passion towards your goal, you will surely be able to succeed. The movie is more than a sports film as the main character of the movie, Don Haskins is more than a basketball coach. He is shown as a good leader, a good motivator with various sort of powers. The film can be linked with Organizational Behaviour as the film practiced discrimation at the basketball court, so as the case with many firms which follow discrimation at workplace. In reality the discrimation is between male and female, but in the movie it was all about blacks and white. In the film more importance was given to the race and ethinicity of the person, which was not the case with the team led by Don Haskins. Each and every team player followed what was directed by the coach Dan Haskins as he interacted and reacted with every player in a different style.

Don Haskins (Jon Voight) had an extrovert personality as he had the courage to talk with everyone, and even he had a judging personality as he wanted a control over his team. He emphasised more on personal values and emotions, this is visible from his will to overcome racisim practice. Even he had a high level of conscientiousness as he was responsible towards his team and was also organised, he used to cooperate and trust his players. Even he used to threaten his players as in one of the scenes he offered a skirt to a player as he was playing like girls. He also gave a direction to the players and was commited to the goal.

Derek Luke played for his dignity. He believed he can achieve the goal and also wanted to achieve the goal. He used to take feedbacks from his coach, so that he can overcome his hurdles. He always reacted to the negative feedback in a positive way as he had confidence in him.

For all the players Don Haskins was a vicarious model, everyone related them with him which played an effective role in achieving the goal. The coach motivated the players in an intrinsic way by giving high level of responsibility.

The director perfectly achieved his purpose of the movie as he was able to portray everything, which he planned before the movie. He was able to deliver the message of racism and was able to reach his targeted audience. The plot was perfectly designed and even the storyline was presented well. The music of the movie was perfect as it binds together the soul and heart of each and every person. The acting of each and every actor was commendable and could not feel more real.

Glory road’s strength is the way in which it blends social awarness into sport and drama genre. It makes the people realize that everything is possible if the goal is reasonable and achievable. The film does have some weaknesses. The movie has too many characters and not enough development for each character. The sports commentator narrates in such a way as it is unfolding, but the audience was able to figure it out. Like when the team was playing terrible, there was no need to narrate regarding the terrible playing of the team. The movie also depicts a lot of racisim as one of the scene where young man is assaulted and racist comments are passed throughtout the movie.

Glory road is like other sports movie but it is different from all of them as it not only focusses on basketball as a sport but also delievers a social message against racisim. This movie shows any observor that no matter what kind of hurdles you face and against any odds no matter how difficult the situation is, you can overcome each and every hurdle. I would rate this movie a B category as the plot was excellent and had a smooth flow and presented perfectly and included all such scenes which were important to the theme. Even the movie focuses on team work, hard work and self discipline. Even the movie addresses the importance of a good leader and an excellent motivator. I would surely recommend others to see the movie as well.