"One goal. A second chance." - Gridiron Gang

It was a cold, wet day in Grahamstown for much of yesterday. It was the perfect day to sit inside, relax and watch a movie.

Simphiwe Matina and Samkelo Maqanda came with me to the video store. I figured they could choose a movie and we'd all watch it together at Eluxolweni. They chose "Gridiron Gang," a movie based on a true story about tough, incarcerated inner-city kids and a guy who wants to save them from returning to prison or ending up in a pool of their own blood on city streets.

The solution he comes up with for saving them? For changing their lives? For attempting to solve all the problems and baggage these kids come to prison with? Start a football team.

I began watching this with the kids and began hating it. It starts like any other Hollywood movie or TV show: chaotic scenes of young, mostly black males shooting guns in an American ghetto, getting nabbed by the police, then going to a place where somebody saves them from themselves. This individual is generally a pretty, white, female.

It's been done so many times before: by having them journal about their problems (Freedom Writers, 2007) or getting them involved in a play or after-school activity (Boston Public, 2000) or merely caring (Dangerous Minds,1995), or being tough on them on the basketball court (Coach Carter, 2005). While Coach Carter didn't feature a nice, white lady as the savior of all ghetto kids, it still presented an unrealistically easy answer to an incredibly complex problem.

I used to love these movies. The longer I spend with the kids at Amasango and Eluxolweni, the more I dislike them.

While I don't think any of the events these films depict are bad--I mean--at least these people are trying. I hate the fact that these movies make people believe in boiler plate, overly simplistic solutions: by having kids journal about their problems, or having them get involved in a play you're going to miraculously change all of their lives. It presents incredibly unlikely scenarios. By having some nice, white lady come in and having these "gangstas" write about their lives, they're all going to come into class and say "Yo white lady, you tight. I neva thought 'bout my life like dis till you gave me dis journal and shit. You fo real yo. Thanks miss. Word."

You might help to change the lives of some of these kids. But journaling or playing basketball or football, sadly, won't erase the years of abuse and neglect kids in America, or South Africa, have dealt with.

I thought Gridiron Gang would be exactly the same as these movies I've seen before. I thought Gridiron Gang would have these kids get on the football team and then, by the time the credits roll, they'd all ride off into the sunset together to the latest 50 Cent or Kanye West tune. I was wrong.

Dwayne Johnson ("The Rock") plays the main role. He's the one who sets up the football team. He's the one who tries to tell the kids that they're not destined to live the same lives as their parents, and he's the one who narrates the last five minutes of the movie where the viewer finds out what has happened to some of the kids on the original team.

A couple go off to college, a couple finish high school and find work, a few others don't finish high school, but still manage to get jobs, some resort to gang life and are back in prison, and at least one ends up dead.

It doesn't make for a Hollywood ending. It doesn't feature slow motion, smiling images of the kids accompanied by some smooth, R. Kelly ballad about peace and love and happiness. It tells a story about how it really is. It tells a story about one guy who did his best to help out some lost kids--and who did amazing things with these kids.

It also realistically shows that a football team isn't the sole solution to these kids problem. A touch down doesn't make their problems go away. It can help some kids get involved with something other than drugs and violence, but it cannot--and will not--help them all. Bravo Gridiron Gang, for not caving to the cheesy sentiments that Hollywood so often portrays in movies about inner-city life.