The documentary, Undefeated, is about a film that reveals and builds up a person's character. Daniel Lindsey and T.J. Martin did an outstanding job directing this inspirational movie. This documentary is about three deprived young student-athletes from a town called Memphis. They all have their differences and struggles with football, school, and families. But after a volunteer coach comes in and helps out the team and these three athletes, things start changing for Manassas High School. Manassas High School in North Memphis was a school that wasn't very successful in football. Other teams would take advantage of this program and basically use them for practice. When Bill Courtney arrived as a volunteered coach, he changed the ability and attitudes of the athletes he had to deal with. Not only did he help this team turn into an athletic team but he also helped build this team into an academic team as well. There are a few athletes that are being focused on in this documentary that have struggles of their own. One athlete named O.C. Brown, was a strong left tackle for Manassas. He was one of the main star players on the team. He has many scholarship opportunities for college, but struggles with keeping his grades up, and scoring high on his tests. Another athlete named Montrail, also known as "Money", was an offensive lineman. He is pushing to get an academic scholarship but struggles because he suffers a knee injury and stops going to school. The last main athlete in this film is a returning player that just got out of Juvy, named Chavis. Chavis learns to overcome a lot of things in high school and his anger management is the main one. He is an explosive and talented linebacker but his temper sets him off at times that are unacceptable to the team and to the coaches. Bill Courtney, the volunteer coach for Manassas High School, was a life changer for these young men and for the rest of the football team. He brought passion, and heart into these boys. He taught them life lessons, and preached that it's not only about being an athlete, but being a student before an athlete. He did not care about the wins or the losses, but he was more concerned about revealing the character out of these young men; one of his main objectives was helping each other grow together as a team and also grow individually. He seen the outcomes he had on the athletes, and it was all love from Courtney and his ability to help these boys grow up and overcome adversity and their struggles. This film gives great detail and goes in depth about the real feelings of the athletes and coach. The camera men get great footage of the external and internal emotions out of the coach and the athletes. With that being said, throughout most of the documentary the camera men are actually holding the camera. It makes the film better, I believe because if it was just a movie being caught on a standing camera, you wouldn't get the same emotional touch from the characters. It's more of a live perspective and makes you feel like it is not even a movie, and it's just something that's happening in the moment. This documentary gives actual features and behind the scenes of an everyday life at Manassas high school and the football program. This gives you a better understanding and helps you grasp the details about the film. The target audience for this documentary would be coaches, players, and anyone involved in an athletic program. This also could be for anyone who wants to watch an inspirational film. Even if you weren't ever involved in football or another athletic program, this movie would show you that kids not only struggle with school, sports, and football but also with outside complications. It shows that one person, which is Bill Courtney in this film, can impact and help build character out of a hopelessness athlete and motivate them to be a better player, teammate, and student. Overall this 10 out of 10-star movie did an astounding job at showing us that this film was an Oscar- winning high school football documentary. From showing the background of where each of the main athletes in the movie came from and what their home-life was like, to parts of the film that keep you emotionally engaged by coach to player. This documentary is one for the books, and I would totally recommend seeing it. You will never get uninterested, and you will always be entertained by something passionate throughout the film. If you're looking for a gratifying sports flick, Undefeated is the way to go.

First of all, I would like to start by stating that I absolutely loved Undefeated. This is easily one of the greatest movies/ documentaries that I have ever watched, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who is considering watching it. Before I go into why it is such a great documentary I will fill you in with a short synopsis. Undefeated follows the Manassas Tigers football team, a terribly underfunded, underrepresented, and unfortunate team, with young players who are projected to have no future in anything they do as a result of their environment. Bill Courtney comes in as head coach and takes on the roll as savior and mentor to the team, while touching the lives of several particular players. In addition to the film focusing on Bill Courtney's impact on the Manassas program, we are inducted into the lives of Montrail "Money" Brown, O.C. Brown, and Chavis Daniels.There are several criteria that I used to assess how much I really enjoyed the film and whether or not I would recommend it. First, I determined that the intended audience was more than likely younger adults and sports fans, as well as people who like documentaries that are touching and appeal to the audiences' emotions and test their sympathy. This film touches on very touchy and relatable subjects including: poverty, imprisonment, underprivileged people and the effects that class and funding have on the education and experiences of students in our country. We also see the impact of athletics and an adult figure that has the slightest amount of faith in one's potential to succeed. For the reader who may still be on the cusp in terms of whether or not you will enjoy this film, it is easily relatable to Remember the Titans, Coach Carter, and Hoop Dreams. All of these movies take a hopeless group of people who have been pushed to the side and follow their journeys to triumph through blood, sweat, and tears. Undefeated incorporates great pacing in the way that the characters are introduced into the film as well as the way we see Coach Courtney touch each one of their lives. For example, we are introduced to two very different characters when we meet Chavis Daniels, a trouble child who is released from jail and placed on parole towards the beginning of the movie. He has a short temper and smart mouth, but you can see in the film how his new coach impacts his life and attitude. This is a change in character that you will want to see. Next, we see O.C. Brown. If you have every seen The Blind Side, imagine Michael Oher as his character is introduced and develops throughout the film, and this is how you can visualize O.C. Brown as he portrays himself in this documentary. I would strongly advise that everyone see this film so they can experience and appreciate how far both young men go despite their differences in character and work ethic. The last bit of criteria I want to address in order to convince you of how great this documentary is, is its uplifting spirit and theme of strength in how it introduces the town, school, football program, and character as dead beat and hopeless, and then in comes a savior through Coach Bill Courtney, and the program begins it's upward trend not necessarily in wins vs. losses, but rather in successes and defying the odds. I can confidently make the claim that the average movie watcher enjoys the theme of hope and this is the theme most present in Undefeated. All in all, I would 100% recommend this film to anyone who isn't sure if this is worth the time. It is a film that encompasses the themes of hope, strength, and family, while maintaining a relatively good pace when introducing the characters and the sequence of events. The sole criticism that I have for the makers of the film is that it honestly could have been 30 minutes longer and I would have greatly enjoyed seeing more events and parts of some of the characters home lives. Other than this, I give this movie a 10 out of 10 and hopefully have convinced you to at least check it out and prepare to enjoy.

I am not a football fan 'cause after years of trying to keep up with, and being 'coached' as it were, on football "plays" and terminology, I STILL can't keep up with all that offensive/defensive/yard line, endzone....blah, blah-- however, for whatever reason -- I guess the inspirational value, I'm drawn to football movies. THIS documentary which won the 2012 Best Documentary is well-deserved.Absolutely awesome in content particularly as the story winds up and then explodes at the end. A must see for football fans in particular, and non- football, but folks who appreciate inspirational true life stories!

It has become a new thing of amusement for sports fans to research old rants of coaches, particularly football coaches, that they gave in a live press conference while currently in the heat of the moment. Quite possibly the most iconic was the professional and motivating Herm Edwards sending a message to his players saying, "you play to win the game" after Herm's New York Jets lost to the Cleveland Browns in 2002. The rant I thought of during Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin's documentary Undefeated was Jim Mora's "Playoffs?!" remake when asked about the Colts' future after a devastating loss. "I just hope we can win a game!" he stated shortly after.It's that kind of mentality I feel that the Manassas High School football team and their long-suffering coach, Bill Courtney occupied for a long, long time, as the school's team, which existed for 110 years, never won a playoff game and have become the devastating team that you look on the schedule and cite as an easy win if you play them. The school is located in Manassas, Virginia, and is grossly underfunded, along with possessing an athletic program unfit for even a third-rate school. The kids need to get by with what they have, and that's not much. Coming from a prestigious and often highly-regarded public high school, I look on with great sympathy and possess deep gratefulness in what I was born into.Undefeated primarily focuses on Manassas High School football team's 2009 year, where they plan to turn things around for the better (not like they could get any worse). They figure that since they're at rock bottom, they can only go up from there, and Bill Courtney plans to turn the team around, putting heavy emphasis on character and frequently telling them, "character is not how you handle successes, because anyone can bask in the glory of a win, but how you handle failures," and that is a bold and admirable message for an unpaid coach to tell his players. He believes in them, even when their previous record was 0-10. You won't find too many high school coaches who take the game as seriously as Courtney, or are prepared to give them advice they can use off the field or when they hang up their jerseys and helmets to pursue other things.Courtney explains that the school is so underfunded athletically that they considered taking part in "pay games," which involves the team traveling miles across the state to face a team they have no chance in beating and accepting a $3,000 - $4,000 in exchange for brutal humiliation. When your only option to get money is to belittle your self-esteem, you really need help in some way, shape, or form. He even goes on to say that the reputation the football team gets is so putrid, ugly, and dehumanizing that athletes that come to Manassas High from eight grade don't even consider playing for the team. Can you blame them? Yet not only are they out of an extra-curricular activity in their high school career, they're almost completely out of a future career with football.Thankfully, Courtney has a reliable lineup, involving O.C. Brown, a senior whose passion is more suited for the field than the classroom, the quick and dependable Montrail "Money" Brown, and a man by the name of Chavis Daniels, who is the team goon, often causing trouble and possessing a very suspicious anger problem. Courtney accepts the challenge with no regret at all, and often connects personally with many of his players. There's a touching scene in the latter half when O.C. and Courtney are traveling somewhere in a car together when O.C. tells the coach that he is attracted to another girl. As a result, Courtney hands over a small bottle of cologne telling him to use it conservatively and he will get all the ladies he wants. The warm, innocuous, yet comforting feeling of bonding goes right to the viewer's heart in just a wonderful scene.The film chronicles the 2009 season, showing modest beginnings, but a wonderfully unbelievable conclusion with opportunities soaring for the team, players, and school. We also see how the players not only adapt to the new opportunities, but also the inevitable ones, like college approaching their line of vision and high school entering their rear-view mirror. Courtney devastatingly explains that once the football season ends, some kids recognize that they have a 2.0 grade point average, a 14 on their ACT, and no scholarship, resulting in almost nowhere to go. It's a depressing state of affairs, especially for kids who have no other experience other than the kind they obtained on the field.Undefeated is a nicely made documentary that had the honor of beating Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory at the 2012 Oscars for Best Documentary Feature. The film will without a doubt will strike an emotional chord for some audiences, yet despite being a true story, there's something about hearing the perfunctory tale of a coach turning a ragtag bunch of half-wits into a winning team, real or not, that feels sort of artificial. Yet there is a divine humanity in this story that isn't ignored, and the result, in the long run, was a long-overdue one Manassas will cherish for another 110 years. It's light years more efficient than a cliché-ridden tale like Rudy, I suppose.NOTE: Undefeated will see a DVD/Blu-Ray release on February 19, 2013, but is currently on several video on demand outlets and on DirecTV's Pay-Per View feature.Starring: Bill Courtney, O.C. Brown, Montrail "Money" Brown, and Chavis Daniels. Directed by: Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin.