Movie Review Monday #44: The Mighty Macs

My friend Micaela and I chose to watch this film for three reasons: It's an inspirational sports film (hey, I loved The Mighty Ducks, why not The Mighty Macs, right?), it stars David Boreanaz, and all the movies in Redbox that actually looked good were rated R and I don't want Eiley to be around that kind of stuff. The Mighty Macs is set in the early 70s and tells the story of a woman who has always wanted to coach basketball. Her only chance to do so is at a women's only Catholic college with a crappy team. Spoiler alert: She leads them to a national title. Thoughts:


1. This is based on a true story and has a good cast - David, Carla Gugino, Ellen Burstyn, and Marley Shelton. This will be the only positive point in this review.

She even gazes inspirationally.

2. Holy moly. I honestly wonder if whoever wrote this screenplay really loves inspirational sports films and just had some cheesy inspirational coaching methods in their head and decided to pick any random true sports event and write a film. Some of the cheesy coaching methods were seriously groan-inducing. Best example: She hands each girl a blank piece of paper and tells them to close their eyes - "Go on, close them! All of you." - and envision everything they know about basketball written on that paper - "Write it all down. All of it." Then she collects the papers in a basket and throws them away. In case they somehow missed that metaphor, she then tells them all to throw away everything they used to know about basketball. Now, I'm not a coach, but I feel like that five minutes would have been better spent running. Or shooting baskets. Or sleeping. 
3. In addition to the coaching methods, she had some really awful speeches. Stop and think of the most trite things you could say to attempt to inspire your team to win during a tough game. Whatever you're thinking right now - she said it at some point in the film. Guaranteed.
4. David Boreanaz was in the film for a total of about five minutes. Booooo.
5. Some of the girls on the team were just terrible actresses. So sad. 


In conclusion, I recommend just watching The Mighty Ducks again rather than watching this film ever. No claws up!