McFarland review: An inspirational tale, which, while very formulaic, ticks all of the right boxes…
McFarland review
Kevin Costner stars in McFarland (aka McFarland, USA), the latest family sports drama from Disney.
Disney are the absolute masters at heart-warming sports-drama. Following the success of last year’s Million Dollar Arm, which was pretty decent, and previous efforts like Cool Runnings (brilliant), Invincible (okay) and even Remember The Titans with Denzel Washington (decent), the studio presents McFarland, a film named after one of the poorest towns in California, situated just north of Los Angeles. In this true story, Kevin Costner plays the role of Jim White, a shamed football coach who has to relocate his family due to an incident with one of the students at a former school. Things aren’t great at the new, much smaller school, and White chooses to switch sports and coach a young group of Latino kids in cross-country running, after seeing the potential in a few of them as they balance a troubled home life, a near-full time job picking fruit in the surrounding fields, and getting an education.
McFarland review
McFarland follows your typical sports drama formula; one that we’ve seen many times over. Costner is the down on his luck coach trying to motivate an under-privileged team, while at the same time trying to create a decent home for his relocated family. While the eventual outcome is seemingly obvious, it isn’t the destination that matters; it is the journey, and Niki Caro‘s film manages to reach out and grab the viewer and provoke emotion in all of the right places. The director manages to make us care about the characters featured, and we have a constant want for them to win – which is all that matters in a film of this kind.
Sure, it’s corny and clichéd at certain points, but it’s also captivating and full of the magic that Disney has a countless supply of. If a formula works, then stick to it, and in t his, the filmmakers do – and they do it well. It even has a pre-credits sting with actual footage of the people involved…
McFarland is inspirational tale that all of the family can enjoy.
McFarland review by Paul Heath, September 2015.
McFarland is released in UK cinemas on Friday 25th September, 2015.
