The Mighty Macs Review
By David Kempler
Mighty Cloying
Tim Chambers' "The Mighty Macs" retells the mostly true story of an extremely unlikely feel-good sports event. In 1972, a tiny Catholic school from Pennsylvania, Immaculata College, captured the first ever women's basketball NCAA championship. Being that I already had personal knowledge of the miracle team from Immaculata, and because I am aware of a few untruths in the screenplay, I have my doubts about a lot of its details.
However, it is true that they really did win the inaugural women's NCAA basketball championship, and I am willing to grant Mr. Chambers leeway as to how he filled in the details. What I cannot forgive is the way he tried to turn this into an us-against-the-world tearjerker that is so cloying that it almost causes gagging.
Carla Gugino stars as Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Cathy Rush. Rush waltzed into Immaculata as it was about to go under because of financial woes and said that she wished to start a women's basketball team there. She marches into the office of Mother St. John (Ellen Burstyn), who is in charge of Immaculata, and convinces her that it's a good idea. Then, under ridiculously adverse conditions, Rush accomplishes the impossible.
While the scenes featuring the personal interactions between everyone fail miserably, the scenes featuring the basketball games themselves work well. Chambers manages to create tension during the games, and even though you know how it will turn out, you can't help but root for the young ladies as they overcome one obstacle after another.
The problem is that there is not enough basketball and there is far too much inspirational chatter where we are left to admire Rush and her young ladies. You can almost see the halos floating above their heads. The best sports films display internal strife and characters that are not clearly good or bad 100% of the time. "The Mighty Macs" is sugar and spice and everything nice, and how much of that can anyone stomach.
