It works in spite of itself. Will Smith and Aunjanue Ellis walk the fine line between good and caricatured performance and only stray from it occasionally. The script ticks the conventional genre boxes so competently that the solid sports entertainment that results from it just about manages to sort of gloss over the fact that the whole affair is far too heavy on hagiography (little wonder, given who produced it) and far too coy about interrogating the methods and the man it celebrates. Robert Elswit's cinematography is pleasing to look at even though the tennis scenes are all varying shades of bad. I had a good enough time, but I doubt I will ever think of this movie again once Oscar season is over.