Last month, we finally got our first look at Taraji P. Henson, Henry Simmons, Michael Clarke Duncan, Tom Felton, Letoya Luckett, and others in the upcoming sports drama From the Rough, produced and directed by Pierre Bagley.
Below we have a just released second trailer which is about 1 minute shorter (a good move, compared to the 3+ minutes the first trailer was), and it’s sharper and more focused. The first one meandered a bit, and felt more like a slapdash patchwork of scenes from the movie, and just didn’t really draw me in. I loved the background music though!
However, despite being shorter and sharper than the first trailer, this second trailer still doesn’t quite cut it for me. It still needs work. It plays like an early draft than a trailer that you’d publicly display for use in marketing a film. If there’s a good film here, and there very well could be, these first 2 trailers aren’t selling it very well, in my humble opinion. I’m not sure who’s cutting these trailer, but, if you’re reading this, none of this is said out of enmity; I want the film do sell and do well, and I just don’t think these trailers are really in its favor.
For starters, even though it’s shorter, at just over 2 minutes, it still plays long, it doesn’t instantly hook you, there isn’t much of a visceral connection, I’d eliminate much of the music, especially towards the end with the Erykah Badu track that plays in an obvious loop, which doesn’t sound smooth enough, it feels uneven, lacks oomph, and more.
If these actors, who most of us recognize, weren’t in the film, and were replaced by names and faces we’re not at all familiar with, I think most of us would brush this off as another straight-to-dvd indie black film title.
I’m not saying every trailer should follow some standard formula; but give me something I can run with.
Anyway… you folks can judge for yourselves; I’m sure some feel differently than I do.
As a recap… in the film, Taraji stars as Cassandra Turner, a fictional character based on the real-life Dr. Catana Starks, a former swim coach at Tennessee State University who became the first woman ever to coach a college men’s golf team. With drive, passion, and guts, she took an unruly group of mismatched kids from around the world and guided them to an all-time record at the PGA National Collegiate Minority Championship.
Simmons plays the college’s snooty athletic director who bumps heads with Turner.
Michael Clarke Duncan plays a maintenance man at the college who knows everything about everyone on campus.
No release info yet; I don’t believe it even has a distributor, though it appears to be complete.
First, here’s the trailer posted last month, and underneath, you’ll find the trailer that debuted today:
And here’s the brand new, shorter, tighter trailer:
