The Gridiron Gang

Gridiron Gang is your typical, bad kids do good heartwarming sports movie. It is based on a true story of a group of juvenile kids in lock up, who are allowed to have a football team as a way to overcome their problems and keep out of trouble.

The Rock is the star of the movie, and I thought he was really good. A lot of people don't give him any credit as an actor, mainly because of the pro wrestler image. At this point, considering he hasn't wrestled in years, I think it is time people realize he is an actor now, not a wrestler. A pretty good one too.

The movie opens up and instantly its a violent sequence at the jail, then on the city streets. Considering the movie is PG-13, I was actually surprised at how much of the violence was allowed in the movie to begin with. Drive-bys, lots of gun play, and other violent episodes throughout the movie. One F-bomb in the movie, a bunch of other vulgarities etc. etc. One more F-bomb and it would've been slapped with the R rating, and then they would've lost the target audience.

Anyways, I really liked the movie and totally fell for all the sappy moments, cliches, and heartwarming music they had. Although some shit was sort of cheesy, I still bought it and enjoyed what I was watching. Rock was awesome as the coach and some of the kids were pretty good too. Others, not so much.

The football sequences were pretty cool too and pretty hard hitting. I liked the majority of the game action, although at weird random points throughout the movie, the camera would subtley zoom in and out for no real apparent reason which was kind of annoying. You're not supposed to notice things like that, although it definately seemed intentional.

My only real complaint is the use of the "N" word as it seemed completely un needed where they used it, and the payoff for the use of it was a cheap joke that the urban youth crowd could laugh at. We get that the guy who said it is a villain already, without him using the word. Cheap use and to be honest it felt out of place at the time it came.

Otherwise, I liked it a lot and would recommend it. 4 buttholes out of 5 from me as far as sappy sports movies go.