For Fun & Profit

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2006)

Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, Orlando Jones, Rhys Ifans - and what would an NFL movie be without Pat Summerall and John Madden? This is a US pro football movie made for fun and profit. And a bit of sex provided by Brooke Langton.
It's a straightforward and deliberately unrealistic conceit: a football team go on strike, so Jack Warden uses Gene Hackman to round up a Con-Air team - and you basically know how things will turn out.
There's ample room for stereotyped characters, prefab comedy situations, and dozens of eminently predictable subplots. Also you're drowned in standard NFL muzak. It's totally brain dead, but then again they say US football is supposed to be totally brain dead, so it's no big loss, is it?
Langton plays the head cheerleader who rounds up her crew from a unique place. Naturally she will have nothing to do with players, even quarterbacks (Keanu). You hear it but you don't believe it. How will this one turn out? Gee, that's a difficult one. Wait for Gordon Sumner to sing and you'll find out.
Directed adequately by Molly Ringwald's Howard Deutch and written by Vince McKewin who hasn't made as much of an impression as a writer as he has as a guest star on TJ Hooker, V, A-Team, and Knight Rider, the movie in a word is 'OK'.
It's not great; it's not Gone with the Wind; but it's not the worst sports film you've ever seen either. Give your local pizzeria a call, sit back and try to not think too much about it.
And try to not get too annoyed by Pat Summerall and John Madden. Or US football - remember what Kate Beckinsale said about the game.