The grumpy football coach Jim White (played by kevin costner) is in trouble. He lost his temper, hit a player in the locker room and was expelled from his high school, so it was difficult to find a teaching position in a prestigious school. Only MacFarlane High School, a small town in Southern California near Mexico, accepted him. In sunny and rich California, MacFarlane is a land of extra-legality. Its population is mainly Spanish-speaking Hispanics, and the residents are mostly farmers and long-term workers, who make a living by picking. It seems that the children born here are doomed from birth: dropping out of school early, fighting, doing coolies, going to jail, drinking ... In the eyes of standard American white Jim White, MacFarlane is a replica of Mexico.
At the insistence of his family, Coach White tried to live in MacFarlane. One day, he happened to find that his students had a gift: strong endurance, not afraid of heat, and good at long-distance running. It happened that he was squeezed out by the football coach, so he found several excellent students to form the first cross-country running team in MacFarlane's history. However, the difficulties they face go far beyond running. Cross-country running is a sport of high society. McFarlane's children not only lack sports equipment, but also can't guarantee training time. Coach White studied cross-country running coach from the beginning, sought sponsorship and persuaded poor parents to let their children take part in training, hoping for a better future. In the end, MacFarlane, the poorest from California, beat other excellent high schools and won the first place. The children also broke the class ceiling and entered the university.
In the film, class barriers are everywhere. The Whites first drove to McFarlane to see the scenery on both sides of the street. I wonder if they have arrived in Mexico. There are no hamburgers in fast food restaurants, only tacos; Selling with Mexican flavor; The school building is dilapidated, and students either fight or play truant; More importantly, except for whites, the residents of MacFarlane are basically Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants or poor Indian indigenous descendants. Class problems are always accompanied by race problems. When playing against other high school teams, MacFarlane's children looked so short, dark and malnourished in front of other white high schools with professional equipment. Poverty is the root of all this.
Americans have always been proud of the "American Dream", and MacFarlane is the place where the American Dream cannot shine. The arrival of coach White has brought the possibility of change to MacFarlane's children. There is an intriguing detail in the film. Children's names for coaches have been changing. Starting from "Lao Bai", they like to say the proverb "fellow villager", and finally they call him "coach" seriously. The change of address represents the acceptance and tolerance of local residents in MacFarlane, and also indicates that whites are constantly integrating into the local community, or that children's self-awareness has changed: from the beginning, they were forced to join the cross-country running team for various reasons, and began to really regard themselves as cross-country runners, hoping to change their life trajectory and realize their "American dream."
In recent years, running has become more and more popular in China, and continuous city marathons and wilder and more difficult cross-country running events have become popular. In America, running became popular in the 1980s. MacFarlane is based on a true story in the late 1980s. Coach White still lives in MacFarlane, leading local young people to create one American cross-country running dream after another. At the end of the film, the prototype of the character appeared on the big screen, and the energetic coach White was still riding a bicycle. The subtitles of the film tell us which universities those players went to later and what occupations they are engaged in now, which changed the fate of working. One of the players, Jose, also became a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He was interviewing in Iraq and did not appear in the film. This is the most touching scene of the film, because it comes from the truth, and even a team member is not shy when he goes to prison later. It's really amazing. It broke the ceiling of class and poverty with an iron fist. After adding this flavor, MacFarlane is not an ordinary bowl of chicken soup. Let's end this film review with a composition by Jose in the film:
When we run, we own the earth.
We own this land, and we speak the language of birds.
No more immigrants, no more Mexican idiots.
When we run, our souls fly and talk to God.
When we run, we are God.