Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Billy Wonka (A) on March 13, 2015 at 18:14:12

I begrudgingly loaded up all my personal prejudices and set off to be offended by another full-scale Hollywood socially-engineered film that would make me want to leave at the halfway point. Instead, I saw a superb piece of Hollywood social-engineering that was palatable if not down right touching.

McFarland is the story of a Colliefornia high school coach who has a temper problem and gets himself fired every few years. Now hitting the bottom of the barrel, Coach White is forced to take a position in an extreme southern Colliefornia town which is about 97% Mexican, Mexican-American. He and his family are aghast at first but overtime become assimilated as anyone would.

Coach White starts a cross-country track team since most of the school's talent has strength in the field of physical exertion. The film covers his runners personal lives, problems, and development as team members.

The film shows us the harshness of their existence by them never expecting anything out of life but being a picker. It shows their awesome work ethic and their heroric devotion to family. All well done and designed to facilitate amnesty with reparations for making them wait so long for the "American Dream". 8^)

The beauty of the film is in it being based on a true story. The epilogue shows the real characters and their places in McFarland's daily life. Plus the fact that Coach White retired and lives there today.

This is the thing Costner does: low-key, guy next door with a little bit of intensity. I'm not sure why that is his talent but it seems to work for him and audiences as well.

Yep, it's worth seeing.