The Heart of the Game (Miramax)
The best sports documentaries are usually fueled as much by human as athletic drama, often more. Such is the case with "The Heart of the Game" (Miramax), an emotional slam-dunk in the spirit of "Hoop Dreams."

Filmed over a seven-year period by director Ward Serrill, the film follows the odyssey of Bill Resler, a slightly eccentric tax professor who, without much prior experience, is hired to coach an underachieving girls' basketball team at Seattle's Roosevelt High. By the end of his first season, Resler molds the Roosevelt Roughriders into a winning team and earns "coach of the year" honors.

Sharing center court with Resler in the film is African-American Darnellia Russell, a tough inner-city basketball prodigy who later joins the team. Recognizing her potential, Resler sees in Darnellia his best chance at fame, but her talent is hampered by insecurities. (She initially doesn't want to play basketball because she feels like an outsider at the predominantly white school.) Meanwhile, events off the court threaten to derail her dreams of being the first in her family to attend college.

The film's multiyear span allows viewers to watch Darnellia mature from a shy freshman to team' leader over several up-and-down seasons, capped by a Cinderella run at the state championship.

Imparting a message about second chances, while exploring race and responsibility, the documentary could have delved further into the players' personal lives like the more compelling "Hoop Dreams," though there's enough here that, by the end, the games are less important than simply rooting for the girls.

Resler's unconventional and aggressive tactics -- he tells his team to "draw blood" and to play like a "pack of wolves" -- may, despite his good-natured intentions, raise a few eyebrows. One girl even admits she enjoys watching an opponent cry.

Offsetting this killer-instinct competitiveness, Resler, who, apart from his motivational methods, is quite avuncular, stresses teamwork and perseverance over winning. He also institutes what he calls an "inner circle" environment free of adult intrusion where the girls can bond and work through their individual problems.

Resler's dedication to the girls is evident in his encouraging them to be the best they can be, as athletes, students and, more importantly, human beings.

The film contains some crude expressions and an instance of rough language, as well as mature themes, including teen pregnancy and sexual abuse, limiting its appropriateness to older adolescents and up. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II -- adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Universal)
In this loud and ludicrous third installment of the adrenaline-charged series, a drag-racing rebel (Lucas Black) is sent to live with his estranged father in Japan, where he befriends a fellow American (rap artist Bow Wow) who introduces him to Tokyo's underground racing scene, running afoul of its mob-connected champ (Brian Tee) when he falls for the gangster's girlfriend (Nathalie Kelley). Director Justin Lin delivers more of the same requisite high-octane race sequences, but, as before, there's little plot under the film's flashy hood, and its glamorization of reckless driving is troubling. Much hazardous and illegal behavior involving teens, some violence, objectification of women, several implied sexual situations including same-sex kissing, suggestive wardrobe and dancing, and scattered crude language. (A-III, PG-13)

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (20th Century Fox)
Trivial, if innocuously entertaining, sequel to the 2004 comedy based on the Jim Davis comic strip, in which the wisecracking, lazy orange housecat (once again computer animated and lethargically voiced by Bill Murray) travels to England, where he inadvertently switches places with a pampered blueblood feline (voiced by Tim Curry) who has just inherited a castle, finding himself in the cross hairs of the estate's kitty-hating, next-in-line human heir (Billy Connolly) while enjoying the royal treatment from the manor's barnyard staff of talking animals (voiced by the likes of Bob Hoskins, Vinnie Jones and Rhys Ifans). Directed by Tim Hill, the follow-up improves on the first, but the bland script once again relies heavily on the kind of screwball sight gags and slapstick that the kiddies may find amusing, but -- even at a mere 75 minutes -- may induce accompanying adults to take a catnap. Some mildly crude humor. (A-I, PG)

The Lake House (Warner Bros.)
Intriguing if slow-moving time-warp romance, as a doctor (Sandra Bullock) commences correspondence with an architect (Keanu Reeves) who lived in the same Illinois lakeside house she herself once occupied, but they come to realize they are existing two years apart from each other. Alejandro Agresti's fantasy is intelligently adapted by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Auburn from a South Korean film, "Il Mare." Though the leads are appealing, and the story of two unhappy people trying to make a connection touching if sometimes perplexing, somehow the movie never really grips. Just a couple of instances of mild profanity and a crude word, and a brief but violent traffic accident, though otherwise refreshingly free of objectionable content. (A-II, PG)

Loverboy (THINKFilm)
Well-acted if bleak story of a psychotic woman (Kyra Sedgwick) -- emotionally scarred in childhood -- who sets out to get herself pregnant and who later becomes an overly protective mother to her young son (8-year-old Dominic Scott Kay). Actor Kevin Bacon's big-screen directorial debut shows skill, and performances are fine all around (including those of Matt Dillon, Campbell Scott, Sandra Bullock and Bacon himself), but those elements are outweighed by a basically unlikable protagonist (Sedgwick's empathetic portrayal notwithstanding), deliberate pacing and a fairly predictable plot. Promiscuity, some brief sexual encounters, artificial insemination, partial rear and upper female nudity, breastfeeding, some crude language, an act of animal cruelty, suicide, and murder attempt. (L, R)

Nacho Libre (Paramount)
Infantile and dull comedy about a Mexican friar (Jack Black), working as a cook in a boys' orphanage, who secretly takes up "lucha libre" wrestling against the rules of his order, while hoping to earn the admiration of a pretty young nun (Ana de la Reguera). Director and co-writer Jared Hess's unfunny follow-up to "Napoleon Dynamite" is utterly lacking in charm, wit or taste and, apart from the pervasive crude humor, the inappropriate puppy-love relationship of its protagonists, both in religious orders -- whether or not they've taken "final vows" -- precludes recommendation. Pervasive irreverence, slapstick violence in and out of the ring, including an impaling, innuendo, crude humor including flatulence, vulgar costuming, partial nudity and heedless thievery. (O, PG)

David DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.