A family film with sketchy sources
Written: Jan 29 '09 (Updated Jan 29 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Family Film
Inspiring
Cute
Cons: Sketchy Sources (for story verification)
Good for 1 viewing only
The Bottom Line: While this is a family film that will surely bring inspiration, I found the source material couldn't be verified. Overall, a RENTAL.
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| xenoranger's Full Review: The Longshots |
Stories about women competing in arenas that are typically heralded as men-only competitions can be inspiring. As history reads, Jasmine Plumber was the first girl to compete in a boy’s football league (in high school) and take the team to the (league’s) Super Bowl.
The story is life. Curtis Plumber (Ice Cube) is a drunk. Curtis is a down and out drunk. His only ambition is to get to the bottom of the next bottle. He’s been out of work for a while. When his niece, Jasmine (Keke Palmer) is having issues at school, her, Claire (Tasha Smith), requests that Uncle Curtis hang out with her. Having little ambition to do so, Curtis reluctantly agrees. During the time the two spend together, Curtis discovers that Jasmine has a natural talent for tossing the pigskin. Since the local football team (Minden Browns) hasn’t won a game yet, Curtis proposes that Jasmine play for the team. After some convincing, the Coach (Matt Craven) concedes and Jasmine becomes their star quarterback.
It’s your basic setup. The truth is that everyone wants to see a movie where the improbable becomes reality. This story is based in history, but I haven’t found much documentation on Jasmine Plumber to refute the events of the film. None the less, the film is good. Ice Cube sticks to his strengths of playing the likeable (regardless of the fact that he’s a drunk) character. When he cleans up later, it’s more about his charisma. Keke brings a likeable but shallow performance. It seemed to me that the character of Jasmine was a much deeper teen than what was portrayed in the film. Still, for a family film, the presentation was good.
The Blu-Ray had some background on Jasmine as well as Spanish language option. Beyond that, I don’t believe there was much more to it that would make the Blu-Ray better than a DVD. To be honest, the back story of Jasmine Plumber is something I’d rather verify through an external source, so the information presented is negotiateably reliable.
As a family film, I recommend this movie. It’s a good rental. As far as owning it, I can’t put a solid recommendation. The movie is one of those stories I can only merit a one pass at. Any more viewings, and I might find myself very disenchanted with the story.
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Feel-good Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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Epinions.com ID:
xenoranger
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Location: MN, USA
Reviews written: 352
Trusted by: 21 members
About Me:
Even the things I really enjoy deserve low ratings at times.
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