Tru-ish paint-by-numbers High School football pic about an All-Orphan underdog team and their new, inspirational coach is inexcusably poor. Set in the desaturated film stock past of Depression-Era Texas, it feels like a vanity project . . . but whose? Best guess is Martin Sheen who also co-produced, his supporting role as alcoholic school doc/defensive coach (Dennis Hopper had the equivalent spot in the very similar HOOSIERS/’86) beefed up with wall-to-wall explanatory narration & twinkly optimism. The boys aren’t bad, each with a single characteristic to chew on (too mad, too skinny, too stubborn, stutterer, etc.), but what’s with new head coach Owen Wilson? In what amounts to the Gene Hackman role in HOOSIERS, Wilson even more self-regarding than he is for Wes Anderson. Trying for quiet depth he makes no impression at all. (Perhaps disappearing into one of those WWI trenches he keeps flashing back to.) Then there’s Wayne Knight, playing a vicious, corrupt school administrator as if he were Simon Legree in a 1914 silent of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. D.W. Griffith might have asked him to tone it down. (Let’s not even mention that FDR impersonator.) Nothing wrong with clichés if you can execute them, but this ‘can’t miss’ football story from writer/director Ty Roberts misses just as badly as George Clooney did on his 'can't-miss' football tale, LEATHERHEADS/’08. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/07/leatherheads-2008.html
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with HOOSIERS. Make it a drinking game with one shot downed for every storyline & character rip-off.
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