I can’t tell what From the Rough is supposed to be. Is this an underdog sports movie? Is this a breaking the race barriers movie? Is this a breaking the gender barriers movie? Or is this just a goofy assorted-box-of-donuts movie? It’s the kind of movie that wants to condemn what Tiger Woods has done to golf, but couldn’t be made without him. What do you do with that?
Catana Starks (Taraji P. Henson) is the women’s swim coach at predominantly-black college Tennessee State University. This film is based on a true story which immediately made me sad as Ms. Henson doesn’t strike me as a college coach at all — she comes off a workaholic and then a jellyfish. Considering this woman was the first female collegiate golf coach in history, I would hope the real McCat didn’t fold so easy.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Coach Starks is handed the golf job by default when the University decides it needs a golf team. By some ridiculous logic, apparently the golf team has to be good, too. Really?
First year team and a coach who has never coached the sport before and you want results?! Say, how do you coach golf, anyway? “Son, I really want you to put the ball in the hole, OK? Could you do that for me?” I’m quite certain the expectations have been exaggerated for dramatic effect, but aren’t you just a little embarrassed this was part of the screenplay? Noting that all the decent black golfers across the country have already been snapped up, Starks collects from abroad, sight unseen, credentials unseen. “Somebody said you could hit a golf ball 300 meters through a mine field? Here’s a scholarship.” Actually, I’m exaggerating on the calm side. From the Rough actually showed Starks not talking directly to the prospect himself, but instead talking to golf pros who knew of a kid, not the kid himself. I would hope the vetting process was a tad more advanced than the picture suggested as well.
Before you know it, Starks puts together a international ragtag squad of underdog golfers. I’m not making this up. I’m intrigued by the idea of an international underdog golfer – that somewhere in the wartorn corners of the globe, maybe Rwanda or Bonsia, there’s a skinny kid constantly attacking petrified yak turds with a whittled tree branch and dreaming that maybe, just maybe, one day, he, too, can be restricted from the worst American elitism has to offer.
Tom Felton, auditioning for Oliver! here as the street cred Brit, is the only kid face you’ll recognize. You’ll notice he’s white. In fact this all-black team has two Caucasians, a Korean, an Algerian living in France and one actual African-American. The big conflict is the collegiate minority invitational which at first bans Tennessee State until Coach Starks complains in person. It’s amazing what realities you can bend when you set your mind to it. So let me get this straight — we’re at the collegiate minorities golf tournament deliberately rooting for Caucasian players against African-Americans in order to strike a blow for diversity … does anyone else have a problem with this picture?
I suppose From the Rough was likeable in the sense that I didn’t hate it. Even if the plot is cookie-cutter, you get points for uniqueness – a story about a black college golf team with only one black guy on it. And the first woman’s coach of a men’s golf team. And an A.D. (Henry Simmons) that can’t stand her and wants her gone. And Michael Clark Duncan as the Deus Ex Machina janitor constantly showing up and saying something cryptic. This particular figure is weird on a couple of counts: 1) because he’s a janitor and constantly seems to be emptying/filling/mopping exactly where he can insert himself into a private-doors discussion and 2) because Michael Clarke Duncan died two years ago, so his role as “school ghost” is a little creepy. In short, From the Rough is a creepy Pitch Perfect where bad golf is substituted for cool a cappella — I know, you can’t wait to see this thing now, can you?
Here’s the story of Catana Starks
Pioneering while staving off sharks
Her tale’s unique
Without much mystique
She ain’t exactly Rosa Parks
Rated PG, 97 Minutes
D: Pierre Bagley
W: Pierre Bagley, Mike Critelli
Genre: Pride of the Bad News Tin Cup
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The real Catana Starks, maybe
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Pick ‘em
