Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Phil Joanou
Cast :
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson……….Sean Porter
Xzibit……….Malcolm Moore
If it weren’t based on a true story, one could easily gleam from the theatrical trailer and television spots that Gridiron Gang is just The Longest Yard with teenagers. Watching the trailer alone one expects to see the MTV logo and a soundtrack listing from artists approved by the network. And from a story standpoint Gridiron Gang shares many of the same characteristics as both films bearing that name as we have convicts looking for redemption in the form of a football game that they play after having learned the principles of teamwork, et al, in a series of drills aimed at improving their abilities on and off the field.
Sean Porter (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is the man behind this true to life story. As a counselor for a youth detention facility, Porter sees plenty of faces come and go. Plenty come back after they have left, leaving him to ponder ways in which he can try and turn their fortunes around. Realizing that these gang-bangers and other thugs, many with the requisite heart of gold, need is some old-fashioned discipline and team work he sets about on creating something that can teach all of these and more. He and co-worker Malcolm Moore (Xzibit) decide to create a football team comprised of convicts to try to make them better people. Rehabilitating their attitudes and trying to get them to become better citizens is the name of the game; facing a series of tougher opponents, it’s up to Moore and Porter to mold them into a football team.
And for a film based on a gritty story about tough kids serving time it resembles Varsity Blues more often than it really should. Filled with enough sports clichés to weigh it down like an anchor, part of the film’s premise is that it should resemble a hip-hop version of The Longest Yard more than a teen sports movie. But that’s exactly what it does repeatedly, taking every single cliché in the genre and using them repeatedly. From the outcast who wants to be part of the team, to two rivals overcoming their previous affiliations to a dying mother who wants to see her child succeed, Gridiron Gang is hampered by so much that the basic premise of the story gets lost. There’s a terrific story about a group of kids becoming a team, and at times it pokes its way through the mess of clichéd madness, but for the most part Gridiron Gang throws the same repetitive situations and dialogue from an infinite amount of sports movies previous to this one out there that the inherent originality of the concept is lost in a sea of a trite plot and archetypical characters.
It’s quite a shame, really, as the film’s headline star delivers a shockingly good performance. While it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before, as he’s about on par with Josh Lucas in Glory Road earlier this year, it’s interesting to see Johnson act dramatically as opposed to trying to imitate action heroes of the past. When he first came on the scene the comparisons to Arnold Schwarzenegger were easy to make; both are heavily-muscled, oozing with charisma and had a larger than life screen presence. The difference has always been that Johnson seems to be more comfortable being a John Wayne type as opposed to a generic bodybuilder in actor’s clothing. Stripped of his usual tools and forced to do more than just use his presence to get by, Johnson gives a shockingly strong performance despite the abundance of clichés surrounding him. Porter is a man who is looking for equal parts redemption and education, wanting to turn these kids from thugs into solid citizens. There’s a passion in his eyes and a desire to do the right thing that Johnson radiates off the screen; this isn’t an Oscar caliber performance by no stretch of the imagination but Johnson uses his charisma to fuel a likeable character.
