So the acting by the young high schoolers was pretty atrocious. Hopefully it isn't a reflection of their talent, and is more a reflection of the fact that none of them have actually ever been competitive athletes and/or come from challenging backgrounds themselves. I don't fault them that. But it does bring the overall believability of this true-to-life film down. The only character I would say was believable (and was well cast) was the head coach. And they just over did it with his motivational speeches. Solid messages, but few good coaches would ramble on that long. I got the distinct impression that every other 'fan' that was given significant coverage in this film, family members and such, were actors that are indeed among the 80% of the population who have never had any interest in sports as fans or otherwise. And that includes Fishburne. Not sure why he took this part. There is nothing especially compelling about the film. They tried to portray the kids as interesting because of their challenged backgrounds (I guess?). But the problem with this is that lots of kids who play sports come from these backgrounds, playing on teams that are wildly successful to playing on teams that are average/mediocre to playing on those that are very much under-performing. That's nothing new at all.
The one reason why I've given it 4 is that they did the high school setting scenes very nicely. They didn't ruin it with dialogue or background music. The sights and sounds just came through. It felt authentic. I'm not sure it wasn't. Very well conceived and very well done.
(Spoiler) So about the plot. You don't actually know what the plot is unless you read the summary in the info on your service provider or on the streaming page. Mine got it horribly wrong and said it was an Alabama team. But I can't really blame them for this error, because the fact is I didn't know what was supposedly so special about this team until I saw the end epilogue descriptions. **It seems that the best talent on the team were all undersized.** Now the offensive linemen and the bulk of the defensive players (inside linebackers, D-Line) were all likely as meaty as you'd expect of any state championship Texas team. But the quarterback, tailback, one of the receivers, and I guess one of the outside linebackers (?) were all short and of small stature. This is why they were not expected to be very successful. That fact is never portrayed or mentioned during the film, which limits the intrigue that I think is supposed to be there. Add in the fact that they were consistently clobbering their opponents one right after the other, made you wonder why anybody should care anyway.
The scenes where they were doing live action of football with the actual actors had various gaffs. Cringeworthy at times but ignorable I suppose. The one that capped things off the most to me was at the end when the announcer said they had 2nd and goal on their own 5 yard line. Now this is theoretically possible by a couple of means. But the series of catastrophic events that would have to take place for this to occur would possibly alone be worth its own separate film.
The most glaring problem with the movie was that one of the central themes - "Brother's Keeper" - really didn't apply to this movie. I kept expecting at some point that you would see how the main athletes' lives were so intertwined that they would immediately be available to give each other support through any of the worst experiences they were having. NOPE. They suffered their respective travails alone individually. Hey it's great that they all played football well together. But that has nothing to do with the very serious issues surrounding the lives of these young men. The pastoral coach appeared to be worthless and I'm not sure what that person's role actually was in real life. The whole "Brother's Keeper" thing either didn't apply, or they completely failed in portraying it properly in any way. Sure there were a few "It's all going to be ok" scenes, but nothing that would make you think that these people were always there for each other during the best of times as well as during the worst.
Anyway, if you want some throwback to your high school days, the movie is worth fast forwarding through to those scenes. The first scene in the restaurant with Fishburne was pretty good. That's about it.
The one reason why I've given it 4 is that they did the high school setting scenes very nicely. They didn't ruin it with dialogue or background music. The sights and sounds just came through. It felt authentic. I'm not sure it wasn't. Very well conceived and very well done.
(Spoiler) So about the plot. You don't actually know what the plot is unless you read the summary in the info on your service provider or on the streaming page. Mine got it horribly wrong and said it was an Alabama team. But I can't really blame them for this error, because the fact is I didn't know what was supposedly so special about this team until I saw the end epilogue descriptions. **It seems that the best talent on the team were all undersized.** Now the offensive linemen and the bulk of the defensive players (inside linebackers, D-Line) were all likely as meaty as you'd expect of any state championship Texas team. But the quarterback, tailback, one of the receivers, and I guess one of the outside linebackers (?) were all short and of small stature. This is why they were not expected to be very successful. That fact is never portrayed or mentioned during the film, which limits the intrigue that I think is supposed to be there. Add in the fact that they were consistently clobbering their opponents one right after the other, made you wonder why anybody should care anyway.
The scenes where they were doing live action of football with the actual actors had various gaffs. Cringeworthy at times but ignorable I suppose. The one that capped things off the most to me was at the end when the announcer said they had 2nd and goal on their own 5 yard line. Now this is theoretically possible by a couple of means. But the series of catastrophic events that would have to take place for this to occur would possibly alone be worth its own separate film.
The most glaring problem with the movie was that one of the central themes - "Brother's Keeper" - really didn't apply to this movie. I kept expecting at some point that you would see how the main athletes' lives were so intertwined that they would immediately be available to give each other support through any of the worst experiences they were having. NOPE. They suffered their respective travails alone individually. Hey it's great that they all played football well together. But that has nothing to do with the very serious issues surrounding the lives of these young men. The pastoral coach appeared to be worthless and I'm not sure what that person's role actually was in real life. The whole "Brother's Keeper" thing either didn't apply, or they completely failed in portraying it properly in any way. Sure there were a few "It's all going to be ok" scenes, but nothing that would make you think that these people were always there for each other during the best of times as well as during the worst.
Anyway, if you want some throwback to your high school days, the movie is worth fast forwarding through to those scenes. The first scene in the restaurant with Fishburne was pretty good. That's about it.