Directed by : Gavin O'Connor

The little things add up. Lets do all the little things right. Loose ball gets us 2 points. Tip pass gets us to 4. Steal gets us another 2. Now we are at 6. Turnover out of our press gets us to 8. All this shit adds up. Every box-out, every hustle, every loose ball, every trap. Put all that shit together, all of a sudden we are pretty fucking tough to beat.



Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) walked away from basketball forfeiting his future despite being a high school star and certain to go big in college or even be a pro. 25 years later he gets a coaching job offer at his alma mater which he reluctantly accepts. But he is an alcohol addict now, just split recently with wife Angela (Janina Gavankar) owing to the tragedy of their son Michael passing at a young age. The question is how will Jack cope with his addiction and yet coach a team of high school boys that he is told aren't good having missed playoffs every of those 25 years.

There's two narratives going here, one is about Jack leading the boys to playoffs with right coaching, tactics and strict discipline. And the other is Jack's personal life that has fallen apart where he feels alcohol is the only way out. The basic premise in a way resembles 'Warrior', but unlike that movie, here I felt both narratives failed both seperately and together. For the basketball scenes, the growth of boys from nothing to so competitive felt rushed. Also, I wanted more intereactions between Jack and them. The alcoholic scenes are little overdone in a sense that it wasn't gripping enough to see how badly Jack was struggling with the abuse of alcohol. In short I felt a lack of emotional connect with Jack despite Ben Affleck chipping in such a good performance which is ofcourse inspired from his real life.

I did like the movie, there's some fun scenes where Jack is trying to not use foul/cuss language as one of Father Mark Whelan (Jeremy Radin) alongside the coaching team believes it will have wrong effect on the boys. Like how Jack tries to convince Brandon Durrett (Brandon Wilson) to be a leader and believe in his abilities for being best player in team. Also, way he tries to get Brandon's father to come to the games, having his own history with his father during his playing days. And the scene where Jack would fake call head Priest numerous times at the school about him not accepting the job offer, as we learn thats how he was calling Angela too before.

Finding the Way Back is a good watch, just doesn't work as much as for me I feel it should have whether it was as a sports movie or redemption in life with a second chance.


My Rating : 6/10