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

Longshots, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 52 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.3 out of 10
based on 19 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

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 

What The Critics Said

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...

75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
An unforced, sweet-natured story about people who find small ways to touch others and rediscover the good in themselves.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The more it builds, the more it grows on you.
Read Full Review
67
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Cube is excellent as the doughy, rumpled ex-somebody who finds new life in helping to save somebody else's.
Read Full Review
67
Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
Hopelessly clichéd.
Read Full Review
63
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.
Read Full Review
63
New York Post Kyle Smith
Its characters are likable enough to settle in with for a pleasant hour and a half.
Read Full Review
60
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.
Read Full Review
60
Washington Post Mike Mayo
The characters have an equally realistic appearance that's rarely seen in Hollywood productions these days
Read Full Review
60
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.
Read Full Review
58
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.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Leaves you feeling buoyed, but you must endure a level of overacting more suitable for the soaps.
Read Full Review
50
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.)
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter
A pleasant flick, more suitable for families than football fans.
Read Full Review
50
USA Today Claudia Puig
The saga is an undeniably heartwarming one about perseverance, hard work, and pride in community. And who could criticize that?
Read Full Review
50
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.
Read Full Review
40
The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
Every triumph registers low on the emotion meter, and most of the supporting characters are two-dimensional at best.
Read Full Review
40
Film Threat Felix Vasques Jr.
A clichéd and painfully formulaic little film.
Read Full Review
38
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.
Read Full Review
20
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.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!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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