2009’s Hurricane Season follows the true story of a small New Orleans high school basketball team following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The movie stars Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland, Panic Room) as Al Collins, a driven and resolute coach. His job is to unite eight players who went to five different schools before the hurricane and attempt to coach them through the Louisiana State High School Basketball Tournament. He must mesh the players’ unique personalities and hidden agendas and turn them into a united team with the same goal in mind. And if you already think this movie sounds like 50% of the other sports movies you have seen, I don’t blame you. However, there is one difference. For the players on the team, and many in the city, basketball was all they had to help them temporarily forget about the devastation that ravaged their city.
Tim Story (Barbershop, Fantastic Four) directs this straight-to-DVD movie. But unlike many that go straight to DVD because they are so bad that they will tank in the theatres, this movie went straight to DVD because no audience would have justified a box office release. By default, a film with this plot will automatically be branded by excessive tenderness and formulaic inclinations. And it takes something exceptional in this day and age (Friday Night Lights comes to mind immediately) for a sports movie to break free from the repetitive cliches that are bound to surface. All that is different between Hurricane Season and movies like Glory Road, Miracle, Remember the Titans, Coach Carter, and a host of other similarly situated true stories is the movie’s landscape. But take away, for a second, that this story occurred because of Hurricane Katrina, and what remains is a sports movie about a team that must overcome adversity and come together to achieve a common goal. If you want that in a film, skip this one and watch any of the five films previously mentioned. Better yet, watch Hoosiers, which is not only the best basketball movie of all time but right up there with Friday Night Lights and Cinderella Man as the best sports movies ever.
As someone who will give any sports drama a chance, I now pay attention to not just the plot or the acting but the scenery, the music, and the authenticity of what I am seeing. I don’t want to take anything away from the basis of the movie because the story of the John Ehret Patriots is remarkable. Coach Collins and his players had so much else to deal with other than basketball that it was surprising that they could have even forged together a winning season, let alone a run at the championship, considering the devastation around them.
Brian (played by Robbie Jones, who has previously had guest spots on television shows like One Tree Hill and Hellcats) was the most impressive actor in the movie outside of Whitaker. Brian is the team’s best player, but he is trying to follow in the footsteps of his deceased brother while also attempting to deal with the pressure of his overbearing father. He uses the opportunity at John Ehret High School to showcase his talents for college. His teammates quickly learn they would rather lose without him than with him. This makes Coach Collins’ job even more difficult because he knows he needs Brian to make a run for the championship. Jones played Brian as a troubled soul, trying to make his brother proud and live up to the expectations of his father, but who also wants to have friends and be liked by his teammates. He butts ahead quite a few times with Coach Collins, and it is these moments that are the finest of the movie.
The basketball scenes themselves stood out to me in a positive way. They weren’t as polished as the game’s scenes in Hoosiers or Coach Carter, but I liked how close to the action the cameras were. You could almost feel the screens, the blocks, and the knee-on-knee collisions. It felt, at times, like you were on the court with the players. However, what I wanted was the need for a soundtrack. The soundtrack is one of the biggest reasons the sports movies I mentioned above succeeded. I love the music they played in the background as the Hickory Huskers made their run in Hoosiers or the instrumentals during the Notre Dame versus Georgia Tech game in Rudy.
If you are only going to see one sports movie this year, then make sure it is not Hurricane Season. If you only plan to watch a few movies this year and have not seen any of the films I mentioned above, consider Hurricane Season. However, don’t worry about planning an evening around it. If it shows up on cable or you find it as an online stream on Netflix, and you don’t have anything else going on, there are worse things you could watch.
Plot 6/10
Character Development 6.5/10
Character Chemistry 7.5/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 7/10
Directing 6/10
Cinematography 9.5/10
Sound 4/10
Hook and Reel 4/10
Universal Relevance 7.5/10
65.5%