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Longshots, The
Dimension Films (The Weinstein Company), MGM


6.3

based on 19 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 6 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG for some thematic elements, mild language and brief rude humor

Starring Ice Cube, asha Smith, Keke Palmer, Jill Marie Jones, and Earthquake

Based on a true story, a poor Illinois town comes together behind the local Pop Warner football team and their unlikely quarterback, Jasmine Plummer, the first female in Pop Warner's history. Under the tutelage of her uncle Curtis, a former high school football star, Jasmine leads her team, the Minden Browns to the Pop Warner Super Bowl and inspires the town of Minden, Illinois to reclaim some of its former glory. (The Weinstein Company)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Doug Atchison Nick Santora
DIRECTED BY:	Fred Durst
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: August 22, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

An unforced, sweet-natured story about people who find small ways to touch others and rediscover the good in themselves.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The more it builds, the more it grows on you.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Cube is excellent as the doughy, rumpled ex-somebody who finds new life in helping to save somebody else's.

Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling

Hopelessly clichéd.

TV Guide Ken Fox

It's all terribly trite, but Durst does make an effort to keep his film grounded in the reality of a lot of once thriving towns like the fictional Minden.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Its characters are likable enough to settle in with for a pleasant hour and a half.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

It also has another watchable turn from Ice Cube, and, as with his previous films, the rap artist-actor leads by example.

Washington Post Mike Mayo

The characters have an equally realistic appearance that's rarely seen in Hollywood productions these days

Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein

Cube fills the bill as the shaggy, aimless Curtis, a veritable ghost of glories past. It's not a particularly layered performance, but it works.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

A sports movie like every other, but the excellent, lived-in performances of Cube and Palmer make it a mildly affecting.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Leaves you feeling buoyed, but you must endure a level of overacting more suitable for the soaps.

The New York Times Nathan Lee

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

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

A pleasant flick, more suitable for families than football fans.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The saga is an undeniably heartwarming one about perseverance, hard work, and pride in community. And who could criticize that?

Variety Joe Leydon

While The Longshots is by no means an unpleasant experience, it feels like a project carried out by people who began with the best of intentions but weren't quite able to sustain their initial enthusiasm.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

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

Film Threat Felix Vasques Jr.

A clichéd and painfully formulaic little film.

Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson

It's almost always rewarding to watch an underdog triumph--what else could explain why movies exactly like this keep being made?--but Longshots is one underdog that's hard to love and harder still to champion.

Village Voice Vadim Rizov

The Longshots strains so hard to inspire, every moment underlined with a by-the-numbers score, that it ends up totally innocuous.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a6:
The Gracie(Carly Schroeder) of "Gracie" is actually actress Elizabeth Shue as a young girl who wanted to play soccer when soccer was a boys only sport. In the film's most stirring scene, Gracie looks at herself in the mirror like a guy would; she flexes her arm, as an athlete would, a male athlete. "Gracie" takes place in the seventies. This scene carries the weight of a revolution in progress. Gracie is more concerned with big muscles than big breasts. In "The Longshots", Jasmine Plummer(Keke Palmer) aspires to be a model, but her Uncle Curtis(Ice Cube) has bigger plans for his niece. He uses famous women as throwing targets, beautiful women who might be role models for a young African-American girl. Beyonce, Foxy Brown, and Tyra Banks are utilized for the drill; talented women in their own right, but sex objects. Tyra used to be Jasmine's idol. Now that the world has opened up for her, she needs new idols. Sports give girls like Jasmine the option of being more than a pretty face with a tight body. But football? Some may argue(remember New Mexico Lobos' placekicker Katie Hnida?) that the game is sacrosanct to boys, which gives "The Longshots" a tension that other inspirational sports movies lack: animosity towards the hero. Football's gatekeepers believe that the hegemony of boys in the most masculine of sports should be maintained. Jasmine's participation as the starting quarterback on her middle school football team is a threat to that hegemony, which makes "The Longshots" a political movie, but the filmmaker largely ignores this fact, preferring instead to focus on the emotional uplift of a dying town that the team's change of fortune provides. What it does, it does well, but there's a glut of movies just like "The Longshots".

Miguel S. gave it a0:
Lowbrow entertainment at its worst, don't waste your cash people!!!

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Longshots, The Dimension Films (The Weinstein Company), MGM

Longshots, The
Dimension Films (The Weinstein Company), MGM