Sports films have a long and inconsistent history. For the most part, sports films have an extensive line of successes. Consider “Raging Bull,” “Caddyshack” and “Friday Night Lights.”At best, sports films can bring out some of the best character dramas film has to offer. At its worst, the sports genre can sometimes feel generic. For every “Raging Bull,” there is a “Rocky V.” For every “Caddyshack,” there is a “Caddyshack 2.” And for every “Friday Night Lights,” there is a “When the Game Stands Tall.”

“When the Game Stands Tall” (Rated PG; 115 min.) is a sports drama directed by Thomas Carter (“Coach Carter,” “Save The Last Dance”) and stars Jim Caviezel, Michael Chiklis, Laura Dern, and Alexander Ludwig. When De La Salle High School loses for the first time in 151 games, right after Coach Bob Ladouceur has a heart attack and loses a former member of the team to a gang shooting, the team is in shambles. The team must figure out how to continue on with its season while also remembering what high school football is all about.

At first, this film looked promising. While the trailer showed a lot of clichés associated with sports movies, it also showed potential. It seemed as though the film was going to be more focused on its characters then the game itself, which is great. The best sports movies are more of character studies than sports highlights.

While “When the Game Stands Tall” attempts to do this, it never actually does it well. The characters given to us are boring and resemble cliché characters of past football movies. Clichés are not bad starting points. There is a reason they become clichés, but problems arise when clichés feel like nothing more than a movie following a script.

Coach Ladouceur, played by Caviezel, is a speech-giving, straight-faced, family-ignoring coach typical of most sports movies. Even when he is given a hard edge, smoking being what caused his heart attack, the film never goes far enough. Chris Ryan, (Ludwig) the star running back who is only a few touchdowns away from breaking the record, is really playing for his father, not himself. But all of that is verbalized by Ryan or other characters. It is never clear if he actually feels this way.

One extremely depressing thing about this film is misuse of acting talent. Sometimes great actors can grab the terrible source material and run with it in a way that elevates a film. This time it is unclear whether the script and directing are just so bad that the actors have absolutely nothing to work with. They seem to be just as generic as the movie itself. Chiklis and Dern are two actors who are known for their great performances. In this film, they give us nothing.

So then comes the question, should you see this movie? Do you have a Netflix account? It is a better idea to just go on there and watch the entire “Friday Night Lights” series. It will not only fill your sports drama need, but it will fill it cheaper and better than this film ever will.

1 star

Jacob Pierce can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JacobPierce1_DE