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Longshots (The)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Genius Products Review written by and copyright: Andreas Petersen (4th January 2009). |
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The Film
 I’m not the biggest football fan in the world, but it’s a game that I can appreciate. Furthermore, I can appreciate a sport’s potential to bring people together in the worst of times. But that’s only in real life. For some reason, the magic behind an inspirational sports story is rarely captured in a narrative film, at least in my opinion. Inspiring and amazing sport stories based on truth are better left to be documented ala "Hoop Dreams" (1994) or "Tokyo Olympiad" (1965). For whatever reason, Fred Durst, ex-lead singer to the band Limp Bizkit, a band whose namesake comes from a game involving doing sexual things to a dinner roll, has decided to tackle a inspiring true story for a family friendly film. The story of "The Longshots" is that of Jasmine Plummer (Keke Palmer), a nerdy girl who likes to ready fantasy novels, and has great amounts of trouble when it comes to fitting in. She is tormented by the cool kids at school, and wants to stay all day. Her mother (Tasha Smith) enlists the help of her ex-husband’s brother Curtis (Ice Cube), an unemployed man who can’t let go of his glory days of high school football. Jasmine’s mom wants Curtis to hang out with Jasmine while she works extra hours at the local diner. At first, the two have nothing in common and don’t get along very well. However, one day Curtis asks Jasmine to throw him a stray football that has landed near her feet, only to discover that she has an amazing arm, and Curtis begins to train her as a QB. From here on out Curtis fights to get Jasmine on an all-boy’s team that is suffering a winless season. After demonstrating her capabilities, Jasmine is accepted, and slowly but surely, leads the team to a little league Super Bowl, while attracting attention from the media to her ailing town. Technically, "The Longshots" is an incredibly average film. I felt as though the performance from Palmer was nothing special, and even bad at some points, with Ice Cube being the only person to stand out as an actor. Sadly, the script written by Nick Santora is extremely bland. I would honestly estimate that approximately 80% of the dialogue of the film is happening during some sort of inspirational message, and after a while, the whole thing feels hokey. Also, the film follows a formula that works thusly: Jasmine will make a mistake, do better on her second try, then throw a game winning pass in the last seconds of the match. This happens again and again and again and again. After a while, I knew exactly what to expect every time, and my expectations her delivered. I can only watch Jasmine clinch a football game in the last moments so many times before it becomes tiring. When it comes to Durst’s direction, I have to say I’m a little torn. While he doesn’t do anything special with his vision, I almost appreciate this to a certain degree. I find that more often than not actors/celebrities who turn to the directing chair tend to over direct their films. Here, Durst constricts his camera movements and compositions, and I actually appreciated this, because I don’t think this story needed to be framed and composited with a daring artistic flare. Here’s the thing about this movie. I actually didn’t think it was that bad per se, but honestly, it must be one of the most generic sports films I have ever seen. I happen to agree with all the central messages of the movie (girls can do anything a guy can, winning isn’t everything, etc. etc), I just don’t agree with the package they were delivered in. There is no subtlety to this movie, and the end product is incredibly forgettable. However, as a kid’s movie, it works to deliver an important message in an easy to understand package. This one is literally for the kids, and not adults.
Video
"The Longshots" is presented in a 1080p 24/fps High-Definition 2.35:1 widescreen picture mastered with AVC MPEG-4 compression, and the results are clean, though unspectacular. When it comes to image quality, the picture is fine, with limited grain and noise, but when it comes to the colors of the movie, my eyes got bored. The whole film has this muted washed out look, that doesn’t allow any colors to sort of pop off the screen, so while I was bored with the film’s narrative, there was little to look at to keep me interested.
Audio
"The Longshots" is presented in an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround sound track, as well as a basic English Dolby Digital 5.1 track, with optional English and Spanish subtitles. The sound here is pretty uninspired, as I never felt that my audio set up was ever taken advantage of. The movie doesn’t warrant amazing sound, but I still felt as though it had been lazily transferred to BD.
Extras
"The Longshots" disc includes deleted scenes, a making-of featurettes and the theatrical trailer, all of which are explored below. Fist up is a plethora of delete scenes, 13 in total. These scenes are rough edits with incomplete sound mixing, and they are: - "Curtis Rejects Winston’s Offer" running for 2 minutes and 10 seconds, in which Curtis turns down a shady job offer. - "Claire In Diner With Co-Workers" running for 1 minute and 7 seconds, in which Jasmine’s mom offers a bit of back story concerning Curtis. - "Jasmine Makes Her Own Dinner" running for 50 seconds, in which Jasmine is shown taking care of herself. - "Team Embarrassed By Jasmine" running for 43 seconds, in which Jasmine accidentally spoils a pre-game ceremony in the boy’s locker room. - "Coach’s Office" running for 1 minute and 58 seconds, in which Curtis pleads with the coach (Matt Craven) to start Jasmine. - "Reverend Sees Potential In Curtis" running for 1 minute and 13 seconds, in which the reverend (Garrett Morris) tells Curtis he can come back to church when he’s good and ready. - "Curtis Is Leaving" running for 1 minute and 27 seconds, in which Curtis mulls over his past glory. - "Media Coverage" running for 41 seconds, in which reporters are kicked off the field during practice. - "Curtis Puts Winston In His Place" running for 2 minutes and 22 seconds, in which Curtis solidifies his position on his town’s new face. - "Jasmine and Claire" running for 54 seconds, in which Claire sees Jasmine’s drive to win. - "Jasmine Is Injured" running for 3 minutes and 33 seconds, in which Jasmine gets the wind knocked out of her, and is benched despite her reluctance to do so. - "Curtis Give Jasmine MVP Medals" running for 1 minute and 44 seconds, in which Curtis hands over to Jasmine that which has kept him driven. - "Girls Want To Try Out For Browns" running for 36 seconds, is an alternate ending in which a group of girls tries out for the team’s next season. Next up is "Making The Longshots" which runs for 8 minutes and 6 seconds. In this, the cast and crew are interviewed, and I really got the sense that there was great chemistry on the set. Palmer comes off as a really nice girl who has enough humility to not sound like a blowhard, and the actors express how it was to work with Durst. Even though I didn’t care for the movie a whole lot, it was nice to see that people at least had a good time making it. Next is a "Conversation With Ice Cube" featurette, which runs for 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Here, an extended interview with the leading man is offered, while he explains how and why he got involved with the project, and how what he loves most about the story is that it is true. I didn’t find this to be too interesting, as it was really just an extension of his feelings expressed in the making-of. Next is "A Conversation With Fred Durst" featurette, which runs for 7 minutes and 27 seconds. This was a bit more interesting of a feature, and the director expressed how he wanted to switch up the usual thing for not only Ice Cube, but for himself. Durst also expressed how he was drawn to the story for personal reasons involving his own childhood. "Jasmine Plummer: The Real Longshot" which runs for 6 minutes and 45 seconds, offers interviews with the real people behind the story, as well as cast and crew, expressing their admiration for the real-life hero. This feature was interesting to watch, for the true story greatly contrasts the screen one, in that it was always Jasmine’s choice to play football, and her uncle was always the coach of the team. Lastly, the disc includes the theatrical trailer, which runs for 2 minutes and 33 seconds.
Overall
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