I remember when watching “Midnight Run” (one of the funniest movies ever made) in the theaters, there were four old ladies sitting behind us. About 15 minutes in, one of them said loudly, “They’re saying the F-word an awful lot.” Another responded, “I know.”
Literally five seconds later, De Niro cursed a threat to Charles Grodin and the woman behind me said, “Oh my goodness! I don’t think the language is ever going to stop!”
I laughed, and wondered why so often audiences aren’t sure of the subject matter they’re about to see on screen. And I fear that with this movie, the commercials will show rapper Snoop Dogg as the coach of a youth football team, and think it would be great for the family. This is R-rated, and the F-word is uttered about 50 times. The N-word about 30 times, and a lot of other cursing, especially directed at kids, and by kids. It’s a shame, too. In real life, Snoop Dogg created a youth football league about 20 years ago that gives an opportunity to kids in inner cities to play sports and cheerlead. It’s a terrific non-profit he created, but you watch this movie, and wonder how that same person could have created such an environment.
Snoop plays a former NFL receiver named Jaycen “Two Js” Jennings. Since his initials have two Js, his touchdown celebration involved him toking on a joint in each hand. He has the cockiness of the fictional receiver Rod Tidwell (Jerry Maguire) and the off field problems of real life receivers Terrell Owens and Antonio Brown. He’s hit rock bottom. Well, not with drugs and drinking (although he is smoking pot in many scenes). It’s on the professional level. When he talks to his agent (played nicely by Kal Penn), it’s the cliche stuff you’ve seen before. He’s told nobody will hire him (remember “Tootsie” or more recently, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”?). The advice he’s given is that he should do some charitable things so people aren’t just focusing on his past indiscretions (one of which involves him slapping a kid that’s taunting him).
After cursing out former tight end Tony Gonzalez (playing himself), his Lamborghini gets hit by a bus (which is as satisfying as Regina George getting hit by a bus in “Mean Girls”). A judge sentences him to 250 hours of community service. While picking up dog poop in a local park, he sees his old high school sweetheart (Tika Sumpter) and her son, who have coaches that keep quitting on their football team.
One of the flaws in this movie is something that bothered me in “School of Rock.” Jack Black’s character doesn’t care about the kids for the longest time. In this, it’s the same with JJ. Even when he does start to care about them and puts in the effort, he has the worst way of doing things. He curses non-stop, and acts like an idiot. Now, you can do a character that doesn’t care about the kids and it can be funny (think Walter Matthau in “Bad News Bears”). And we just saw this in the disappointing Taika Waititi/Michael Fassbender movie “Next Goal Wins.”
JJ is doing this to try and sleep with his old girlfriend, as well as improve his public image. Any guesses on whether this rag-tag team of poor inner city kids will become champions, or if JJ makes it to the broadcasting career he’s hoping for?
Real life football players and broadcasters have cameos that don’t add much (although you do laugh when JJ calls Michael Strahan a “gap toothed mother f****”).
I remember in 2008 having to sit through the 2008 movie “Role Models” where a car accident leads two guys (Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott) to be sentenced to volunteer as Big Brothers. It was a lot worse than this, because it only got funny when Ken Jeong was introduced late in the film. This movie has some scattered laughs throughout, and most people that go to see it will probably enjoy themselves.
It does have a vomit scene, because as I’ve been tracking, 92% of all movies have them (and it’s from 12-year-old kids drinking, isn’t that nice?).
2 stars out of 5.