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Movie Review: The Longshots
by Bill Wine
The true story of 11-year-old Jasmine Plummer, the first girl to lead her team to the Pop Warner Super Bowl
RATING: PG
GENRE: Sports dramedy
RELEASE DATE: August 22, 2008
RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes
VIOLENCE FACTOR: Only football-game "violence"
BAD WORDS: One utterance that's mild, brief, and appropriate
RACY? Not at all
GRANDS:
CRITIQUE:
The Longshots proves the adage that effective sports movies are never really just about sports.
In this inspirational sports dramedy based on the true story of Jasmine Plummer, the first female quarterback in the history of Pop Warner (the Little League of football), the game footage isn't at all convincing: Hard-core sports fans will laugh it off. But overall, this sweet film about parenting, female empowerment, and overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds is audience-friendly and warmly winning. Grandparents and grandchildren alike will be absorbed in the story and rewarded for it.
Keke Palmer, of the fine 2006 spelling-bee drama Akeelah and the Bee, stars as Jasmine, an 11-year-old misfit being raised by a single mom (Tasha Smith). The story revolves around her unlikely success leading her small-town Illinois team, here renamed the Minden Browns, to the 2003 Pop Warner Super Bowl.
Ice Cube, one of the film's producers, costars as Jasmine's uncle Curtis, a former high school football star who has become an unemployed loner. When Curtis babysits his niece, he discovers that she can toss a pigskin like nobody's business. He then makes it his mission to turn her into the quarterback of the local youth team — despite the strenuous objections of every boy on the squad. Eventually, Curtis becomes the team's coach as well, and as the kids make their way to the championship game, he regains his lost spirit, as does the tiny, tired town.
Fred Durst, former lead singer of the metal band Limp Bizkit, directed The Longshots and as the film's quarterback, he struggles with the on-field scenes, never quite managing to convince us that Palmer can actually throw the ball downfield. But he does an excellent job of capturing the story's family and small-town dynamics, and he finds considerable humor in the based-on-reality situation. He also gets what is easily the most charming and convincing performance of Ice Cube's checkered acting career. We root for Curtis even more than we do for the team itself.
A late-summer longshot itself, The Longshots completes a Hail Mary pass and reaches the family-film end zone.
GP Rating System:
Four Grands = Bravo, don't miss it.
Three Grands = Pretty good, short list it.
Two Grands = Just okay, don't dismiss it.
One Grand = Yeah, we dissed it.
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