'The Long Game' is story of a Texas Mexican American high school golf team and its victory despite racism
The new movie "The Long Game" tells the true story of the winning San Felipe High School golf team in Del Rio, Texas and the Mexican American educator and war veteran who was denied entry in a golf club who formed the team.
Fans will recognize him from the reboot of “Magnum P.I.,” a crime action TV series about a former Navy SEAL who solves cases in Hawaii. Starting Friday, actor Jay Hernandez can be seen on the big screen in “The Long Game,” an underdog sports movie about a Mexican American golf team who wins the Texas high school championship in 1957.
In the film also starring Dennis Quaid and Cheech Marin, Hernandez plays J.B. Peña, a Mexican American war veteran and school district superintendent who's rejected from membership at the San Felipe Country Club in Del Rio, Texas, because of his ethnicity, but who goes on to form a high school golf team, the Mustangs, for the Mexican American teens who fell in love with the sport while caddying at the club.
The Mexican American golf team went on to win the high school championship.
Jay Hernandez plays J.B. Peña, a school district superintendent who formed a high school team that would beat the odds. Courtesy Anita Gallón M.“For my character particularly, he feels that's (the golf club) his destination of acceptance. ... It’s an aspirational thing for him,” Hernandez said in an interview.
“He served in the military, that wasn’t enough. He’s essentially living the American dream, that’s still not enough,” Hernandez said about Peña. “He just feels like there’s this moving goal post.”
Rating: 5