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.
Inspired by the adventures of the 1972 women’s basketball squad at the Catholic school Immaculata College in Philadelphia, the movie makes the most of the versatile Gugino as Cathy Rush, the headstrong and unorthodox new coach who stuns her charges with her frank talk and strange new ideas.
The movie checks off every item on the list of sports-movie clichés, from oddball training methods (Rush has the girls train in a drainpipe) to the threat of outside perils (the college is in dire financial trouble), to clashes with the boss (Ellen Burstyn as the Mother Superior) to a reach for sociopolitical significance (in this case, equal rights for women as Rush’s husband tells her she should be more of a conventional wife). Everything plays out exactly as you’d expect in a cheerful, well-meaning movie in the style of something made for the Disney channel.