An uplifting movie with good performances that periodically drowns in clichés.
By Austin Davidson

Underdog sports stories have not been hard to come by since Stallone’s plea for “Adrian!” filled theaters over 30 years ago. Almost every sport has been exploited up on the big screen and the “winners to losers” formula has only been slightly modified. Plenty of football films. Lots of baseball. ones Basketball movies are a dime a dozen. A couple wrestling movies.

But what about swimming?

Is there enough cinematic drama in watching people tread water back and forth endlessly to constitute a feature length affair? Pride may offer something that isn’t all that fresh and unique, but it gives a nice glimpse into the world of competitive swimming and shows it in an exciting way that may get kids off the couch and into the water.

Terence Howard portrays real life Philadelphia swim coach Jim Ellis, who still coaches in the same community to this day. In the world of 1973 Philadelphia, Ellis can’t find a proper teaching job despite his college degree, so he takes up a residency at the local community center to assist maintenance man Elston (Bernie Mac in wonderfully gigantic mutton chops befitting of the time period) in closing the run down building for good. The jive talking local kids with too much time on their hands at first see Ellis as a triviality, but on one hot day after a city worker takes down their basketball goals, Ellis leads them inside the decaying community center and shows them the swimming pool he’s fixed up.

Ellis starts coaching the young men (a girl also eventually joins the team) and before you know it, they are ready to compete. Ellis guides them with tough love to the top as they all become great swimmers and learn self discipline, team work, and of course, pride. Other obstacles stand in the swimmers’ way, including prejudiced opponents, local peer pressuring criminals, and the city itself that wants to condemn the down-at-its-heels community center. A few really heavy-handed moments full of too many teary eyes make the prejudiced scenes feel pretty melodramatic.

Terence Howard turns in a stoic performance as the good coach Ellis with much to overcome. He has an intensity about him that pulls you into his characters. Unfortunately the character of Jim Ellis is made to stumble over a dozen cornball clichés that take away from Howard and the film’s credibility . Bernie Mac gives a surprisingly dramatic turn as Elston and shows that he can pull off subtlety with the best of them. Big time sports buff Tom Arnold shows up as the villainous coach Bink who wants to put Ellis and his team down at every turn. A few young stars on the rise make up the rag tag swim team.

The movie offers up all the moments you know you’re going to get from a competition yarn: the underdog, the good coach and bad coach, the glory of the win, the agony of defeat … the discipline it takes to rise to the top etc.. It’s all water that’s been well treaded. A long time ago a silly little chain-smoking Frenchman uttered the words “If it’s been done, no sense in doing it again.” If the formula works, you can argue that he was way wrong. For many filmgoers and sports enthusiasts who’ve sat through this story before and are in need of someone to step up and show us something different, those words ring very true.

PRIDE OPENS MARCH 23