Let's Go Out To The Movies: 'McFarland USA' (PG - Disney - 2 hrs, 8mins)

Note- I'm sorry that this is a bit later than usual, there was something a bit more pressing happening over the weekend than a pretty decent family flick from Disney. -End Note

Directed by Niki Caro
Written by Christopher Cleveland,
Bettina Gilois, and Grant Thompson

Alo Party Peoples.

I sat down to write a review of McFarland USA, but then realized that I have almost nothing to say about it. It isn't bad, in fact by the standards of family movies coming out in the annual post-Oscars dry spell it's pretty good. But in telling the true story of a washed up high school football coach starting a cross-country team at a predominantly Latino high school to inspire their way out of poverty, it has so few noticeable new takes on the genre and so little technical prowess that the only thing I can say about it is "yeah, it's pretty good". So I guess there's no reason to go on.

Have a nice day.

Gre-


-That would be lazy, but I'm only semi-joking. McFarland USA is so generic and cookie-cutter a movie that it is impossible to write an engaging review of it. So I'm trying something new. A list of disconnected, semi-sarcastic semi-snarky one-sentence descriptions of and statements about the movie. If the film makers didn't put any effort into their work, why should I put effort into talking about it?

• If The Best of Me is a really good Lifetime movie, then McFarland USA is a really good Disney Channel movie....
• ...and if this wasn't coming from Disney it would be called white savior Oscar bait, and it still kind of is...
• ...but it's as much about a stranger from a strange land trying to connect with a different culture as it is about cross-country teams, and that's where the movie works best...
• ...which means that when it goes back to being Remember The Titans it becomes far less interesting....
• ...if you've seen any other inspirational sports movie in your life, you've seen McFarland USA...
• ... but nothing else worth seeing right now is appropriate for your kids, so give it a shot

See you next time, hopefully with a better movie, or at least a more interesting one.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B