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‘The Longshots’ same as those before
Movie Review: The Longshots
By Rachel Shepard
Special to 2theadvocate.com
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PLAY OFFICIAL TRAILER
Based on a true story, the Longshots is a heartwarming film about the first and only time a girl quarterback played in the Pop Warner football league.
Jasmine Plummer (Keke Palmer) is a typical young teenager, and when her Uncle Curtis (Ice Cube) is forced to watch her while her mom works nights they form an unexpected bond. The ex-high school football star begins to teach his niece the ways of the game and turns her into the quarterback of the local football team, the Minden, Ill., Browns. Not only does she help the Browns make it to the Pop Warner Super Bowl, but the whole town of Minden is brought together by team spirit and pride.
The Longshots is pretty typical of any small town sports story, where the underdogs are hoping to bring back some glory of the old days. Before you go into the film anyone can predict what will happen and you won’t find any surprises. It’s a sweet story, and the plot moves along and is fairly well-told, but nothing really separates it from the thousands of other sports movie, except that this one is about a girl playing in the boy’s league.
Fred Durst, former front man of Limp Bizkit, made his second attempt at directing with The Longshots and did fairly well. Considering there wasn’t much to work with as far as plot goes, the characters were loveable, the pacing was solid, and it turned out to be a pretty decent film.
Some of the scenes in the beginning felt a little rough with the conversations between Curtis and Jasmine and needed just a little extra finishing. It just felt as if something was missing to make it smooth and complete. He’s definitely not the greatest director, but you weren’t distracted by any of the shots, and I think he will definitely improve with his next movie. I will be interested to see what he decides to take on next.
As far as acting, it was all fairly good. Although we are used to seeing Ice Cube in highly comedic roles, like “Are We There Yet?” and “Barbershop,” this was much more dramatic for him. I went in expecting a lot of physical comedy and one liners from him, but there wasn’t much and I was actually surprised that he was able to do this so well. There wasn’t much depth to any of the characters, but the usual charm he always adds to his roles made me love his character the most.
The movie is overly cheesy and some of the conversations are incredibly unrealistic, because they try too hard to make emotional points. Still, this is another Cinderella story that is likeable enough and family friendly.
You can sit through the hour and a half finding yourself rooting for the home team despite its clichés and nauseating feel good moments.
