In 1971, Immaculata College finds a new coach, Cathy Rush, to head its women's basketball team. Though her team has no gym and no uniforms, and the school itself is in danger of being sold, Coach Rush looks to steer her girls to their first national championship.
The blandly inspirational sports flick "The Mighty Macs" is warm- spirited but all too obvious, even as the charms of its lead performer Carla Gugino help sell this familiar story.
A by-the-numbers underdog sports movie, but as a female athlete who benefited from the national attention that team brought to female athletes, I embrace this feel-good story.
Without resorting to any trick plays, "The Mighty Macs" is the equivalent of high-top Converse All-Stars: timeless and effective, but perhaps not flashy enough for the kids at the mall.
If you're a sucker for underdog stories and love rooting for a ragtag bunch that takes the nation by surprise, you'll find that "The Mighty Macs" delivers the same emotional payoff as "Hoosiers."
There's something refreshingly unpushy about the movie and its beliefs, and Gugino seems to be sauntering through on her way to a different, spikier movie, the kind that is her stock in trade.
[It's] given such old-fashioned, kid-gloves treatment that its potential warmth and excitement caves under the weight of writer-producer-director Tim Chambers' good intentions.
