B-

The oft-repeated formula about a teacher who uses tough love to motivate his supposedly hopeless charges to hitherto undreamt-of levels of achievement gets a fresh telling in “Coach Carter,” one of those “fact-based” inspirational stories that are carefully calculated to have you cheering by the close. A cross between “Stand And Deliver” and “Hoosiers,” it’s the story of the titular character–a hard-driving businessman who returns to his old high school in Richmond, California, a working-class town near San Francisco as a part-time coach and uses a mixture of near-military discipline and high expectations to wean his players from their previously lackadaisical manner to victory on the court. But Carter expects them to perform not only in the gym but in their classrooms, too; and when their studies don’t meet his requirements, he cancels practices and forfeits games, causing a crisis in the community but creating a sensation in the news media. But wouldn’t you now it, the guys buckle down and learn, and though their grit and determination might not be enough to get them to the state championship, their commitment will certainly earn them respect from all quarters and–more importantly from the coach’s perspective–a real chance at college scholarships, their ticket out of the urban blight they grew up in and couldn’t otherwise escape.

There’s very little that’s new in “Coach Carter,” and it’s undeniable that at well over two hours it takes a lot more time than necessary to tell a very familiar story. Still, it works better than most other examples of the admittedly tired genre because at least it’s played with conviction. Director Thomas Carter–no relation, apparently–manages the same combination of slickness and grit that he brought to “Save the Last Dance,” and he’s fortunate to have Samuel L. Jackson as his lead. The actor brings his customary brusque dignity to the demanding coach, and if he doesn’t manage to make him a particularly distinctive character, he gives the fellow a brooding intensity that’s quite effective. Naturally there’s a stable of young actors to play the hoopsters, and they’re all pretty good, even if the subplots about them frequently move into teen soap-opera territory. Robert Ri’chard is Carter’s son Damien, a bright, straight-arrow sort who insists on transferring from a tony private school to play for his dad, while Rob Brown (of “Finding Forrester”) is Kenyon, the promising student who’s torn between his dreams of college and his plan to make a life with his pregnant girlfriend Kyra (Ashanti). Then there’s Rick Gonzalez as Cruz, the kid who opts off the team to join up with his drug-dealing cousin until tragedy intervenes (and then must work double-hard to reclaim a spot on the squad). Others include Antwon Tanner, Nana Gbewonyo, Channing Tatum and Texas Battle, all of whom make their rather cookie-cutter characters at least tolerable. Unhappily, the same can’t be said of Denise Dowse, who can’t get past cliche as the overburdened school principal.

“Coach Carter” has the same smoothly noirish look that “Save the Last Dance” had, with browns and burgundies predominating in the color scheme and lots of surface gloss in Sharone Meir’s cinematography, and a score (background music by Trevor Rabin alternating with a collection of R&B and rap songs) that keeps pumping away–sometimes irritatingly. The editing by Peter Berger works especially well in the sequences of basketball action, which don’t differ much from those found in earlier pictures but still carry the requisite punch. He might have been a bit more assiduous in getting the running-time under two hours, though.

“Coach Carter” treads a well-worn path but, like the similarly formulaic “Dance,” it works better than you’d expect. Among sports pictures it’s no all-star, but not a bench-warmer either.