Director: Kenneth A. Carlson
Producers: Kenneth A. Carlson, Sidney Sherman
Written by: Kenneth A. Carlson
Cinematography: Curt Apduhan
Music: Randy Miller
U.S. Distributor: IFC
Kenneth Carlson's documentary Go Tigers! is presented with all the adrenaline of a traditional Hollywood sports movie. However, since the events chronicled therein are true, and there's no assurance of a "happy" ending, there's actually a fair amount of suspense about how the big game will turn out. The film chronicles the 106th season of the Massillon Tigers high school football team, culminating with their on-field battle against their arch-rivals, the Canton McKinley Bulldogs. Massillon is a small Ohio town of 33,000 facing a fiscal crisis as a result of the virtual abolition of the U.S. steel industry. Because of the town's financial situation, the future of the school and the football team hangs in the balance pending the outcome of a November vote on a tax levy.
Massillon is a place where high school football reigns supreme. It's the talk of the town not just during the fall, but 365 days a year. From birth, every boy is bred to play football, and those who choose not to are branded as outcasts and ostracized. Carlson's approach to the town's rabid enthusiasm for the sport is even-handed. He presents both the good and the bad. Along the way, taking a page from Hoop Dreams, he offers insight into the lives of three Tigers players. Rather than forming the heart of the movie, however, this ultimately becomes little more than background color. Carlson doesn't have enough time to present a game-by-game account of the 1999 season, follow efforts to pass the levy, deal with various social concerns about high school football (such as the process of "redshirting", whereby a player is held back in eighth grade so he will be bigger and stronger by the time he enters high school), and offer fully realized characterizations of three boys.
As documentaries go, Go Tigers! is engaging but not superior (although it was enthusiastically received at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered). It involves viewers in the Tigers' 106th season, but doesn't offer anything new or surprising about the world of high school sports or the towns that follow their teams with an obsessive fervor. The best way to view this film is as a fairly traditional sports movie. It certainly has all the elements, and Carlson has pieced it together in such a way that it represents a genuine crowd-pleaser.
© 2001 James Berardinelli