Incomplete pass

Rating: 3/10 (26 July 2000)

I feel bad for ripping apart a movie whose heart is in the right place. But cliche is cliche, and this movie's full of them. I know that deep down, there was a heartwarming story there about heart and guts and love of the game, but it never really came out the way it should have. Most characters were little more than two-dimensional stereotypes. Substorylines picked up out of nowhere and were dropped just as suddenly. Almost every popular song from the last decade is thrown in somewhere as a way to move the plot along, but it's an obvious attempt to disguise the lack of story. The funniest moments are blown in the trailer, and the climatic will-they-or-won't-they scenes are all too often interrupted by needless shots of cheerleaders, well after their subplot has played out. Keanu's big motivational huddle speech is a slogan I read on a T-shirt 10 years ago. Even John Madden and Pat Summerall are reduced to cariacatures of themselves; Madden is allowed- make that forced- to rattle off all of his trademark lines, but only for the sake of the schtick. The football strike is a story perfectly suited for an underdog movie, even a funny one. All of the elements were there. But instead of landing in the same category as BULL DURHAM or CADDYSHACK, this one ends up being as forgettable as BASEKETBALL.