This is actually not a bad film, but if you're someone who finds themselves offended by stories about minorities told through the filter of a white leading character, you better run in the other direction. The sad truth of the movie industry is that many such stories would never get told without higher-profile white actors at the center of them, and it just so happens that a white man named Jim White (played here by Kevin Costner) was at the heart of this particular true-life story of a group of Latino high school students who become contenders in the California's cross country championship.
There's something about the way Disney does sports films (REMEMBER THE TITANS, THE ROOKIE, SECRETARIAT, INVINCIBLE, MIRACLE) that almost always seems to work. I'm talking about the ones that aren't made for children, so sorry MIGHTY DUCKS and AIR BUD franchises. Granted, the titles aren't especially inspired, but they find these true stories and breathe some life into them with top-notch actors and reliable directors. In the case of MCFARLAND USA, the unusual choice to direct is New Zealand native Niki Caro (WHALE RIDER, NORTH COUNTRY), who has shown a real talent for capturing the way Americans often unfairly pre-judge and treat each other in small communities—a perfect trait for a story like this.
White was a winning high school football coach in an affluent California community, but after getting into a skirmish with a player that turned physical, he was unceremoniously let go and forced to take a job as an assistant coach in the smaller, mostly Hispanic community of McFarland. True to form, White gets into it with the lazy head coach and is booted from coaching football, so he comes up with the idea of forming a cross country team, and using his impressive coaching talents in this new competitive arena. Since many students at the school split their time between education and picking fruit with their families at nearby orchards, they have developed a tolerance and stamina for running long distances in extreme heat with inadequate footwear—all of which works to White's advantage.
MCFARLAND USA's message are worthy ones, even if the filmmakers feel the need to spell them out every 15 minutes or so. These young men are underestimated by every team they race against. That doesn't mean the McFarland team always wins, but it does mean they don't make it easy for their opponents to do so. The boys are reluctant participants at first, but as you'd expect, once they start doing better in their races, their confidence and dedication to the team increases, and the community falls in line and begins to support their team with a ferocious dedication.
But the film is also about White and his family accepting, and being accepted by, the McFarland community. When they first roll into town, White and his wife Cheryl (Maria Bello) and two kids (Morgan Saylor as Julie and Elsie Fisher as Jamie) are terrified. And the fact that the new coach's name is "White" means that people don't even have to think of a nickname for him. But as the film goes on, everybody gets to know everybody else, and racism goes away forever. Okay, maybe not, but certain layers of distrust do get pushed aside, Meanwhile, each cross country team the McFarland runners go against seems more racist than the last, so it balances out.
When the film isn't spoon feeding us civics lessons, it concentrates on the unconventional tactics that Coach White used to whip his team into shape, and therein lies the most interesting part of MCFARLAND USA. As far as the students go, the story focuses primarily on Carlos Pratts as Thomas, the fastest of the group, and the Diaz brothers (Michael Aguero, Rafael Martinez, and Ramiro Rodriguez), who seem to inspire each other into doing better. Most of the runners are given a cursory backstory and some iota of drama to make their struggle seem more interesting, but mostly these details do little more than add minutes to the running time.
As she has shown in her previous works, director Caro has a real gift for finding the beauty in working-class environments, and in this part of California that isn't too difficult. And while the story of these young men is genuinely curious and fascinating, I wish we could have spend more than an obligatory amount of time with them and less with White and his brood. There's no debating whether this is story worth telling—it absolutely is. And all it would have taken is a slight shift away from that which is familiar and toward something less so to make MCFARLAND USA stronger. Still, as it exists, it's utterly watchable and, at times, worthy of cheering on as it struggles to make its uphill climb.
