A white high school coach leads an African-American cross-country runner to triumph* in the Kendrick Brothers’ preachy saga.

The story tells of a high school basketball coach who’s forced to take over a cross-country program with only one runner.

When economic hard times hit his small-town community, forcing many of his star athletes to move, coach John Harrison (Alex Kendrick) watches his expectations for a winning basketball season go down the drain*. To add insult to injury, he’s ordered by Principal Brooks (Priscilla Shirer) to take over the cross-country team — an unwanted assignment made more difficult by the fact that only asthmatic* new student Hannah (Aryn Wright-Thomson) wants to compete. Miserable* about his situation, Harrison just can’t see beyond himself, until he visits a hospital with his pastor and accidentally stumbles into the room of Thomas Hill (Cameron Arnett), a man who’s lost his sight due to serious diabetes*.

Hill, it turns out, is a former cross-country star, although the real surprise is that he’s also Hannah’s father, having abandoned* her during his former shameful life of drugs and degradation. Now, however, Hill has found his true vision thanks to God, and he quickly convinces* Harrison to get right with God. In return, Harrison decides — following prayer with his wife Amy (Shari Rigby) — to introduce Hannah to her dad. That Harrison and Amy are doing this behind the back of Hannah’s disapproving grandmother Barbara (Denise Armstrong) is of little consequence, since “Overcomer” makes clear that Harrison is driven by righteous faith in the Lord and, just as importantly, by his belief in the sanctity* of relationships between children and dads.

After an opening half-hour of relatively subdued action illuminated by sunlight streaming through windows, and scored to delicate piano and swelling strings, “Overcomer” stops beating around the bush* and begins preaching at a near-nonstop pace. This process reaches its apex* during a sit-down between Hannah and Principal Brooks in which the latter overtly talks about God’s love and then leads Hannah in prayer, before assigning a homework assignment from the first two chapters of Ephesians.

Laced with white-savior undertones, this sports drama offers nothing in the way of nuance and no respite* from its religious propaganda.(SD-Agencies)