The Longshots: Critic Reviews

The most surprising thing about the inspirational sports movie The Longshots is not that there isn't already an inspirational sports movie with that exact name. The big shock is that the director Fred Durst -- and he doesn't do half bad.

What makes this one different? Absolutely nothing. (Sure, it's based on a true story, but I mean come on, whatever.)

Former Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst directs in a surprisingly dull fashion, and most of the characters, including Jasmine's mother and father, are numbingly one-dimensional.

The film works so well because the sports elements are the least important.

Director Durst and DP Conrad W. Hall bathe everything in a sickly beige, neutering all but Cube's natural charisma.

This genuinely affecting movie, based on a true story, has a heart as big as a football field even when its plot points are telegraphed.

If I've seen one movie about a team of underdogs, I've seen a dozen. But I hadn't seen The Longshots before.

Musicians in need of a metronome could pick up a steady beat from The Longshots, a thoroughly conventional sports-underdog movie based on the real-life first female quarterback in the Pop Warner junior football league.

A cliche-riddled, warm and fuzzy, small-town sports drama.

A surprisingly tepid directorial effort by Limp Bizkit nu-metal rocker Fred Durst, pic seldom deviates from the genre-cliche playbook.

The Longshots (awful title, guys) plays every instrument in the cliche orchestra, but it at least plays them well, and its characters are likable enough to settle in with for a pleasant hour and a half.

Durst and Cube and Co. have done a decent job with a movie that never set out to be more than an average crowd pleaser.

So how does the creative team behind The Longshots freshen up such a hackneyed, cliche-ridden franchise? The answer is that, despite a game effort, they don't.

Predictable course of practices, winning games and overcoming personal obstacles.

Every triumph registers low on the emotion meter, and most of the supporting characters are two-dimensional at best.

The Longshots is a likable enough Cinderella story, one whose heart is clearly in the right place, even if it winds up on its sleeve once too often.

The script may have taken an hour to write, and I hope they got a bulk rate on generic inspirational music, but Cube and his young co-star, Keke Palmer, are plenty charismatic, and Durst doesn't knock over the camera.

It has a nice message, and despite the fact that I feel he's been totally emasculated over the years, Cube remains a solid actor.

Durst's surprisingly gentle and understated direction lends the proceedings authenticity even when they cover the most pro forma ground.

That's the problem with this well-intentioned celebration of the spirit of Title IX: it wants so badly to be liked that it tries to blend into the crowd. [Blu-ray]

Ice Cube brings his family film "A" game to The Longshots

A winner for the whole family.

It is unabashedly sentimental and, at times sincerely touching, mainly when Ice Cube and Palmer are alone together on the screen.

Cube and Durst have certainly survived worse career flops, but the chances of them working together again on a film? Let's just say it's a longshot.