Movie Review - Glory Road

Saw Glory Road over the weekend. For those not aware, it's the story of how tiny Texas Western University (now known as UTEP), a team with seven black players, beat the University of Kentucky in the 1966 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship game. It was significant because it was the first time in college basketball history that all five starters were black. In fact, they were starters for the entire year.

The movie was pretty decent. Josh Lucas plays coach Don Haskins who is brought into coach the program, and immediately goes about recruiting black players. Because this was in the heart of the civil rights struggle, you can imagine the problems that the coach and his players are faced with. Each of the actors playing the players did a respectable job and it wasn't a stretch to see the real-life players in their game. The cinematography was also good. What stands out to me is a scene towards the end of the movie that was edited almost in a stop-motion manner where camera flashes puctuated the stops.

I said the movie was pretty decent. Almost worth the eight bucks I spent. It's certainly not Hoosiers. I don't know if any basketball movie can top that. I'm going to give it a "7.5." I'd recommend it, but wait till it comes to a cheap theater or dvd.