Undefeated is an excellent documentary about the football team at Manassas High School in North Memphis, Tennessee. But don’t worry – you don’t have to love football to love this film. You probably don’t even need to like football. This film is really about overcoming obstacles, working together toward a common goal, and rising above one’s set of circumstances. The idea is that your dreams are not necessarily out of reach, although there is plenty of heartbreak and trouble along the way. As a former NFL player tells the team early on, “You gotta think outside your circumstances.”

This is a team in an underfunded system, a team that has always lost, once having a season record of 0-10. They play in an area that is basically poor. The plant that supplied most of the families with jobs closed, and so a lot of folks moved out. (There are several shots of boarded up houses during the opening credit sequence.) This film documents one season in which the team attempts to do what the school had never done before – win a play-off game.

The film starts with the team’s coach, Bill Courtney, listing off players who have been shot and are no longer in school; also, another player was arrested, and this was all within two weeks. And yet he tells them, “This is our season – I don’t care what happens.” The film takes us through the entire season, starting with the first day of practice.

Before their second game, there is a talk of a planned fight after this district game. At the half, Manassas is down, 20-0. The players are obviously down as well. Bill Courtney tells them optimistically, “This is an unbelievably good opportunity.”  And the team does manage to come back in the second half. As incredible as that is, the footage after the game is even more intense. Because of the worry of a fight, the cops stop the teams from shaking hands. And you realize just how serious things are. The celebration of the victory juxtaposed with very real concern of the police for the team’s safety is a seriously engaging moment in the film. And this film is full of such moments.

The team’s coaches are all volunteers.  The head coach, Bill Courtney, began volunteering six years before this film was shot. His first year there, the team won four games, so they were no longer the worst team in the state.  Bill Courtney says, “You think football builds character, which it does not. Football reveals character.” Bill can relate to these kids because his own father left when he was four years old. Not only does Courtney coach these kids, but he has to solve problems among teammates (and in doing so, he misses his own son’s first game).

Besides the coaches, the film focuses on several of the team’s key players. O.C. is a senior, and plays left tackle. He lives with his grandmother, and sees football as his way out. When O.C.’s grades slip he moves into coach Mike Ray’s house, because tutors wouldn’t go to O.C.’s house. Seriously. These are kids who really care, who are trying to make it, who are putting in the effort. And these are coaches who go way beyond simply teaching them how to play the game.

Montrail (AKA “Money”) is also a senior, and plays right tackle. He is small for the position, but mentally tough. Money’s is one of the more heartbreaking (and ultimately heartwarming) story lines in this film. He is injured, and is unable to play for the rest of the season. The footage of him hearing the news from his doctor is intense. Again, you come to really care for these guys.

The film also focuses on Chavis, a junior linebacker who returns to school after serving fifteen months in a youth penitentiary. He gets into fights with other players, and is suspended from team rather than kicked off.

One of the elements of this story that I found fascinating was how they funded the football program. They used to play what were called pay games, where the team would be bused out to another school, and as Courtney says,  “They’d beat our ass, they’d give us a check, and send us back on our way. And those five or six games would raise fifteen to twenty thousand dollars and that’s what would fund the football program.” The problem with that, of course, is then when you got to your district games, your kids were already beat up and defeated. So they started Manrise, a program to raise money.

Undefeated was directed and edited by Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin.

Bonus Features

This DVD has some good bonus material. There is a commentary track with directors Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin. There are six deleted scenes, including stuff with Joaquin, a player who spent most of his teen years in foster care. It must have been a tough decision to cut this footage from the film.

The Making Of Undefeated  (8 ½ minutes) includes interviews with Bill Courtney, Dan Lindsay, TJ Martin and Sean Combs. (Combs is one of the executive producers.) Dan Lindsay talks about how the idea for the documentary began with a newspaper article about O.C. He and TJ Martin talk about their experience at the Academy Awards too.

And there is a black and white teaser trailer.

Undefeated is scheduled to be released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 19, 2013.