Just what the cinematic world was waiting for — a film about underprivileged kids who form a team and attempt to beat the champs against all odds. "Gee, we’ve never seen that before!” thinks some production executive who hasn’t been to the movies since they started using sound. “And let’s let Fred Durst, front man from the now defunct band Limp Bizkit, direct it!”

Then someone just a bit more savvy comes along and says, “Okay, just to polish it a bit, let’s get Keke Palmer from Akeelah and the Bee to play Jasmine, the female quarterback on this rag tag Pop Warner football team, and let’s get Ice Cube to play her uncle/coach with a troubled past. That should amp it up a bit.”  Unfortunately, it doesn’t. The Longshots plunks down in a clichéd, low energy, recession-blighted atmosphere, and, like most of its actors, never gets up and goes to work. It depends mostly on a sticky, saccharine, omni-present score to hold it together, but that’s more annoying than effective.

That being said, the film is not without a few emotional moments. The corners of your mouth might turn up a little when Jasmine’s efforts to overcome sexism appear to be working, and who doesn’t like to see the scrappy, poor kid team beating the smug, rich kid team on occasion? The fact that blacks and whites work together on a team and in a community where race doesn’t seem to be an issue is also a nice touch.  But much of the all-important pathos is misdirected, especially in scenes like the one where a child “breaks up” with a birth parent by handing over a piece of jewelry. That kind of oddball morality is usually reserved for Tyler Perry films. The Longshots would make a decent after-school special, but a major motion picture release that people would pay up to $12 to see? No way.

Rated PG.

-- LJM