Undefeated
Overview
The football program at Manassas High School in Memphis, TN, has earned a powerful reputation during the school's 110-year history, but unfortunately it doesn't happen to be a positive one. The Manassas team has never been eligible for a single play-off game, and no one expected this to change before Bill Courtney entered the picture. Courtney was a businessman and football fan who took it upon himself to do something about the Manassas football program; he volunteered his services as coach and began shaping a hapless team into one with genuine prospects. Filmmakers Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin followed Courtney and his players through the 2009 season, and their documentary UNDEFEATED examines the coach's efforts to give the school a winning record, as well as the sometimes complex relationship between Courtney, a white, wealthy businessman, and his players, who are all black and mostly come from communities stuck in a cycle of poverty and crime. UNDEFEATED received its world premiere at the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival.
Awards:
Main Cast & Crew:
Dan Lindsay - Director
Daniel Lindsay - Director
T.J. Martin - Director
Bill Courtney
Montrail "Money" Brown
Chavis Daniels
O.C. Brown
Details
- Format: DVD
- Run Time: 114
- UPC: 013132598888
- Genre: DOCUMENTARY
- Rating: PG-13 (MPAA)
- Release Date: February 2013
Movie Reviews
Reviews:
"[A]n irresistible story of football, faith and the lust for happily-ever-after black-and-white endings. " - 02/17/2012 New York Times
"Like all memorable sports documentaries -- and this Oscar-nominated film is definitely one of those -- UNDEFEATED is really an examination not of how games are won and lost but how lives are lived..." - 02/17/2012 Los Angeles Times
"UNDEFEATED is very well done....[The players] let their guards down off the field, and it's moving to see what complex and vulnerable young men they are." -- Grade: B+ - 02/24/2012 Entertainment Weekly
"UNDEFEATED is FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS meets THE BLIND SIDE in nonfiction form....Its triumphs are bittersweet, but they're irresistible." - 02/16/2012 Movieline
3.5 stars out of 4 --" [The film] won this year's best documentary Oscar....We see highlights from several games, but football is the backdrop, not the subject." - 03/01/2012 Chicago Sun-Times
"At moments UNDEFEATED seems incredibly intimate, the camera moving in close on tears and hugs, but ultimately it's the wider picture that resonates." - 08/01/2012 Sight and Sound
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he intimate style offers its own rewards." - 09/01/2012 Total Film
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