** Horrible football film

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 2001)

Fairly funny film that clunks along from scene to scene, never building up any comedic momentum but nonetheless manages to be humorous sometimes. Mostly the film is weighed down by Keanu Reeves' dull performance as a scab football player during a professional players' strike and Gene Hackman's tired bit as the coach who thinks he's seen it all. Nothing inspired ever happens, even the football scenes aren't very exciting, and then the film ends up with a finale about professionals and their love of money over the game that is so out of place and oh-so-self-righteous in a bad way that I wanted to slap the writer. Brooke Langton makes a sparkling star debut as Reeves' love interest, standing out from a cast of known character actors like Orlando Jones and Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) who are basically riffing off the personas we know them already for.