Review of Pride (2007) by Chads. — 27 Mar 2007
Eighteen years after Dodgers GM Al Campanis told Ted Koppel on "Nightline" that blacks lack the buoyancy to be good swimmers, "Pride" shows us that the brothers could float("We'll all float on, okay," goes the Modest Mouse hit) in 1974, before '74, and ever since.
If "Pride" is accurate in its depiction of the era's social mores, you've got to be a little shocked by the unabashed fashionability of bigotry; to openly boo a team on the basis of skin color, at a time when white kids probably called each other "jive turkey", and themselves, "Kid Dyn-o-mite!", in suburbs all across North America.
In 2007, would you get a similar ugly episode at a curling exhibition if Harlem sent a team to Wisconsin? "Pride" isn't just a formulaic sports movie, it's really about minority penetration of a niche sport that's predominantly white.
Ten years ago, "Pride" would be about golf, or tennis. What this movie lacks in originality, it more than makes up in establishing time and place. The period detail seems just about right(the movie doesn't rely too heavily on the era's music).
Like Terrence Howard's pimp in "Hustle and Flow", Gary Anthony Sturgis(Franklin) finds similar transcendence in another black stereotype, the drug dealer, and more than holds his own against the better-known actor.
"Pride" isn't "Hoosiers" in a pool, but it has more buoyancy than the terrible "Glory Road".
This review of Pride (2007) was written by Chads. on 27 Mar 2007.
Pride has generally received positive reviews.
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