Go Tigers!

(Docu)

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Shot on high-definition video over the course of the 1999 season, "Go Tigers!" follows the fortunes of young athletes in Massillon, Ohio, a Rust Belt hamlet where most citizens have long taken pride in hosting "the greatest show in high school football." (Carlson offers a snippet of a 1951 newsreel to underscore the national reputation of Massillon High players and their fans.) As pic begins, the Massillon Tigers, recovering from the ignominy of a "four-and-six nightmare season," are eager to redeem themselves. But their primary impetus may be something more important than pride.

Carlson shrewdly intercuts between young players at their games and school officials on the brink. After three consecutive defeats at the local polls, Massillon High officials make one last effort to raise funds through a school tax levy. If the levy is rejected again, the school district will be forced to make severe cutbacks in service and personnel. Indeed, the situation will be so dire, even coaches won't be able to avoid pink slips.

Early on, the 1999 Massillon Tigers recognize that the best way, maybe the only way, to rally local support for the tax levy is to post a winning season. Which, of course, places even greater pressure on the footballers -- many of whom already feel under the gun to earn athletic scholarships.

Among the handful of young players singled out for special attention by Carlson, by far the most intriguing is a black defensive end named Ellery Moore. Opening scenes establish him as an ambitious and personable young man who clearly views football as his only ticket to college. It therefore comes as a genuine shock when aud learns the unpleasant particulars of his past -- he spent 15 months in a correctional facility after confessing to a sexual assault he later claims he didn't commit.

More troubling ambiguities are introduced as pic introduces Ellery's father, who may know more about his son's alleged crime than he's willing to admit on camera.

To his credit, Carlson doesn't completely sidestep the question of whether the Massillon townspeople have collectively misplaced their priorities. Nor does the director avoid recording examples of excessive behavior on the part of rowdy jocks. (During a raucous post-game party, an under-age, beer-bingeing player vomits voluminously while his buddies cheer.) An especially unsettling detail: When a non-athletic student bitterly complains about football players who flaunt rules that apply to their classmates, some viewers may shudder to recall how the killers at Columbine High claimed they were driven to murder after being harassed by brutal jocks.

For the most part, however, pic is rigorously nonjudgmental, if not unabashedly celebratory, while cataloging the triumphs of the '99 Massillon Tigers. Game sequences are rendered with intimacy and impact -- during at least one grudge match, Carlson provided key players with their own minicams to record the action -- while smartly chosen music enhances the package. Most dramatic features dealing with football (or, for that matter, sports of any kind) fail to end as satisfyingly, and excitingly, as the real-life drama of "Go Tigers!"

Camera (FotoKem color, HD video-to-film), Curt Apduhan; editor, Jeff Werner; music, Randy Miller; sound (Dolby, THX), Ken King. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (competing), Jan. 19, 2001. Running time: 102 MIN.