A talented failure

Rating: 6/10 (15 February 2013)

Strong points first. The film is a re-casting of the Rocky story. With a background in working-class Philadelphia, it deploys football and betting as substitute imagery. A strong cast makes the most of their witty and oddball lines; dialogue is contemporary and properly self-conscious and often very funny. Excellent cast and casting add production value. The film starts strongly and concentrates on details of character. A usable story line brings it all together, if rather predictably. Weak points next. This film is ostensibly about a father and son; in reality, it's about their women. That's because the writers know next to nothing about the male mind, ethos, or condition. This is a film written and produced from a male-feminist mindset. The football imagery is overdone, thudding, artificial, and excruciatingly cliché. The film is somebody's clever conceit, not a viable concept. The betting imagery is overwrought and far too clever to ever work. There isn't a female character in the story who isn't strong and wise, fragile, but unbreakable. There isn't a male character who isn't chatty, kooky, dependent, self-absorbed, foolish, aggressive, brutal, or just plain dull. The men couldn't survive 10 seconds without their gals, or without dreaming about them. In the end, the conceit gets tiresome and insulting to the audience. A film destined for Gender Studies and social edification.