Sweetwater movie review by Movie Review Mom!

If you haven’t heard of Roku, check it out: Roku Express 4K+ | Roku Streaming Device 4K/HDR, Roku Voice Remote, Free & Live TV

My family dropped our expensive satellite dish service and switched to Roku many years ago and have saved a TON of money! I highly recommend it!

Link: amzn.to/3DOOUHF

The story in this film is about Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton who made history in his journey to become the first African American to sign an NBA contract, forever changing the game of basketball.

The film was written and directed by Martin Guigui. Already, it has been nominated and won 17 awards from various film festivals around the world, including “Best Film”, “Best Director”, “Best Story”, and “Best Actor”. Congratulations to the team!

I really admire Jim Caviezel for choosing good, Christian movies in recent years to boost that genre of film. The rest of the cast does a fantastic job and includes recognized Hollywood names like Richard Dreyfuss, Eric Roberts, Cary Elwes, Jeremy Piven, Mike Starr, and Kevin Pollak, as well as some unfamiliar faces.
Everett Osborne crushes it as Sweetwater. He looks great and plays basketball like he’s truly the star he’s playing.
Even if you’re not a huge basketball fan, you’re still going to enjoy all of the fun basketball scenes and impressive skills.
There are lots of emotional and educational moments.
The film does a great job showing us what racism in sports looked like “back in the day” in the 1950s in the USA.
I love it when filmmakers pay attention to the details when trying to create a period piece that looks authentic. The production elements were outstanding.
The soundtrack is absolutely lovely. As if the writer/director Martin Guigui wasn’t working hard enough on this film, he also created the music with Jeff Cardoni.
Sweetwater really did drive a taxi in Chicago during his later years in life!
Keep watching at the end of the movie to see real-life footage and to see him speak and play basketball!
We’ve seen a lot of underdog, sports biopics over the decades, yet most of us have never heard of Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton. It’s about time his story was told.
The story is filled with heart. You’ll cry and cheer.
Hollywood film critics are mostly trashing this movie with a disrespectful score of 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences are loving it, awarding it a 95%. I definitely agree with the audience score.

Some of the characters who were “racist white men” felt very one-dimensional. The villain of the story is basically the group of white men who had no vision for the sport, relying on tradition and the color of the players’ skin.
Even though the story teaches us about the NBA, we don’t see an NBA on the screen until Act 3.

THEMES:
Teamwork
Willingness to work hard
Climbing mountains of change
Racism
Hope
Working toward your goals
Persistence
Passion
Growing your God-given talents