The Mighty Macs: Film Review

Written, produced and directed by Tim Chambers, The Mighty Macs is clearly a story that has great personal meaning to Mr. Chambers, who does all he can to bestow upon the real life underdog story as much emotional struggle and humorous wit as possible. After all, we can't imagine that any story about the triumph of a dawdling college women's basketball team in the 1970s met their savory end without a good amount of ridicule, self-deprecation and determination. We know the story, we know the outcome, and we know the formula. So are we buying?

I bought it, but I kept my receipt, so to speak. It's hard not to want to cheer for a movie based on the real life story of the nuns at Immaculata College in the Philadelphia area who, in the now fabled year of 1972, overcame every obstacle known to woman to become league champions.

The story treads a very familiar track: a sports team isn't doing well (at all), someone high up decides to save the team, a savior (in this case, Carla Gugino) is recruited, and after a great deal of practice and emotional turmoil, the team is suddenly sitting atop its league. Cue the cheerleaders . . . and the confetti. Gooooooooo team!

But the really interesting part of the film is not so much the sports as it is the struggle that exists off the court. David Boreanaz plays husband to Gugino's Cathy Rush, a man with serious misgivings about his wife not just coaching a basketball team (and that too a women's basketball team), but of having any kind of career at all.

It's a bit hard to take seriously this day in age when women dominate the workforce and men are crowding out the unemployment lines, but it's the one storyline in the film that doesn't stand completely on cliche or formula, though it does in the end play as a bit too retro. Still, it gave the film its much-needed third dimension and saved the story from playing as gently as a nursery rhyme.

Regardless, the film is a definite crowd pleaser and should find plenty of patrons at the marquee this weekend. Maybe there's hope for the WNBA after all?

Comment on this Scandalous entry »