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Gridiron Gang
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment


8.4

based on 25 reviews
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based on 25 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some startling scenes of violence, mature thematic material and language

Starring The Rock, Xzibit, L. Scott Caldwell, Leon Rippy, Kevin Dunn, Jade Yorker, David V. Thomas, and Setu Taase

Gridiron Gang tells the gritty and powerfully emotional story of juvenile detention camp probation officer Sean Porter (The Rock), who, along with another officer, Malcolm Moore (Xzibit), turns a group of hardcore teenage felons into a high school football team in four weeks. Confronted with gang rivalries and bitter hatred between his teammates, Porter teaches some hard lessons (and learns a few himself) as the kids gain a sense of self-respect and responsibility. (Sony)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Jeff Maguire Jac Flanders (film Gridiron Gang)
DIRECTED BY:	Phil Joanou
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 16, 2007 Theatrical: September 15, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	120 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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...

Premiere Bartley Morrisroe

Can he (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ) act? Surprisingly, for the most part, the answer is yes, and the film is a success for it.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie's inevitabilities (the humiliating loss, the ebb and flow of camaraderie, the triumphant finale) have deep resonance.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Gridiron Gang gives you a lot more to think about during the ride home.

Variety John Anderson

A crowd-pleasing, uplifting, feel-good and not-so-rare hybrid -- the sports/prison movie -- in which Los Angeles gangbangers are taught the virtues of trading violence on the streets for violence on the field.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

None of their stories are particularly resonant, but the film is really about a grand social experiment gone right, and it succeeds well enough on that front, even while it isn't that convincing in the particulars.

USA Today Staff [Not Credited]

The best thing about Gridiron Gang is the performance of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. He is engaging, affable and wholly believable as a former football star turned officer in a juvenile detention center.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Great message, so-so movie.

Empire Sam Toy

What begins as a series of pleasant revelations and a deft example of genre defiance is nearly crippled by cliche in its second half, but The Rock's surprising dramatic magnetism will hold you until the final whistle.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Ultimately, the script lacks the ambiguity, irony and heartfelt emotion that would make the conversion of a dozen hardened criminals very credible, and -- despite its obvious good intentions -- the movie seems pat, simplistic and slightly phony.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

It's sad that with everything it has going for it, this movie plays like a tall tale -- something too good to be true.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Feels less like a movie and more like a Tony Robbins motivational seminar.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

If you like your sports movies, especially your football movies, larded with more clichés than a politician's stump speech, Gridiron Gang begs to be seen.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Gridiron Gang is not imaginative, but neither is it painful to watch.

The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

The movie's good intentions are consistently undermined by its simplistic notion of redemption, and its inspirational thrust is diluted by an epilogue that suggests the program still has a ways to go in the life-altering department.

Village Voice Bill Gallo

Never mind the obvious parallels to "The Longest Yard" and "Remember the Titans"; what we get here is one huge, indigestible sports movie platitude.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Parades itself as an ''honest'' message movie, a call for troubled kids to choose life over street nihilism, but the picture is so earnest that it leaves out the easy, old-school pleasure conjured by the last few years of Disney sports flicks (Invincible, Miracle, The Rookie).

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

In a true-life sports tale like the recent "Invincible," you buy into all the inspirational clichés because the characters have inner lives and the movie is about something bigger; here, you keep hoping for something bad to happen to somebody just for the sake of balance.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

The film is a pleasant surprise.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

As sports movies go, Gridiron Gang isn't bad, just not top-line material.

The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg

Great material, but the film never catches fire.

Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)

The end credits are accompanied by clips of Porter from the Emmy-winning documentary Gridiron Gang (1993), which prove that key scenes from this movie were lifted straight from life and that life needs better writers.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Some movies present their whole story in a two-minute trailer, but Gridiron Gang says it all in its poster.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film is relentlessly formulaic -- it's like a super-sized Afterschool Special with PG-13-rated bad language -- and is weighed down by Trevor Rabin's bombastic score, which telegraphs the appropriate emotional response to every feel-good moment.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The Rock commits himself admirably to this trite tale, but by the end, even his enormous shoulders buckle under the weight of so many clichés.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Instead of a crackling good movie in which "The Longest Yard" meets, say, "The Bad News Bears," director Phil Joanou instead decided to make Gridiron Gang a lugubrious tutorial on the importance of being a winner.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Sjs gave it a10:
A great movie! I'm not even a football fan. But these young men I was rooting for!

N J. gave it an8:
Yes, it is full of cliches. But this is what so many movies today don't have: a story that reflects what life could and should be like(rather than the "realism" of most films today); an uplifting life-is-good theme; and characters that you really care about and root for.

Mark B. gave it an8:
Fade this football drama to black and white, substitute Pat O'Brien for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, omit the street language and drive-by shootings, and include more than just one White guy on the team, and you've got a 1938 "B" movie that would play fairly well as Turner Classic Movies 2 AM fodder. In short, this shouldn't work nearly as well as it does, so why does it work so well? Unlike its closest current rival, the true-life-with-disclaimers rah-rah saga Invincible, whose pretentiousness only serves to accent how hokey and threadbare it is, Gridiron Gang's utter simplicity, conviction and sincerity really help it to score. Director Phil Joanou (Three O Clock High, U2 Rattle & Hum) and writer Jeff Maguire (In The Line Of Fire) are seasoned movie pros, but a measure of just how nicely their collaboration works is that one of its Big Moments--in which opposing gang members and other juvenile detention facility inmates in unison refuses a command, which of course tips him off that they're finally working together as a team--is lifted straight from The Dirty Dozen's playbook, but is handled so deftly that it took me days to realize it. Trevor Rabin's full-bodied musical score is, like the music for Patch Adams and last year's Shopgirl, one of those highly manipulative efforts that tries to tell me how to feel, but I forgave and even enjoyed it because Joanou rather daringly used it in place of the standard gangsta-rap CD jukebox wallpaper that you'd normally expect to hear in a movie dealing with gang warfare; the movie avoids the hypocrisy of speaking out against violence in the dialogue while inadvertently endorsing it on the soundtrack. Excellent pacing, characters worth rooting for, some wonderfully effective off-the-field sequences (the one where an assistant coach talks the dean of a Christian college into allowing the prison team to play by quoting Bible verses verbatim is a favorite) make this an inspirational movie that really inspires: if it's not quite as effective as recent personal favorites Akeelah and the Bee and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, that's largely because there are already lots of football movies, very few spelling bee movies and, as far as I know, NO other housewife-who-wins-"complete-this-sentence-in-25-words-or less" movies in existence. The Rock, who has delivered witty, sly performances in The Scorpion King, The Rundown and Be Cool, is called upon to project total altruism and dedication; he does so with equal charisma and charm. He's apparently the reason why reviewers almost never use the phrase "as an actor, he's a great wrestler" when describing the film work of Hulk Hogan, John Cena or Kane...no matter how warranted!

Michelle C. gave it a6:
This is no different from the hundreds of football movies out there. The Rock is terrible as usual. Some of the other supporting roles were cast well though. Only for the serious football fan will this be enjoyable.

Kari K. gave it a10:
This was an uplifting movie with an awesome moral. Even if the story seems unbelievable it is nice to escape to a place where bad guys can become good.

Chase P. gave it a7:
I think this movie is alright. The Rock isn't the best actor, but the storyline to the movie is good! I just don't like how they copied Longest Yard!

Chad S. gave it a5:
Where's the scene in which the coach warns his team about engaging in fistacuffs with the opposition? One little brouhaha and the Mustangs' season would've likely been cancelled. History says they made it through their schedule without incident, no doubt due to a coach's strong reprimand against retaliation(what's also missing is the trash talk you'd expect from young men playing former gang members). A film about sports, even when its results are of secondary concern, should at least make an attempt to be realistic(no personal fouls?). The big game, which resembles the current "Survivor", doesn't acknowledge that the game might possibly be racially-charged. "Gridiron Gang" doesn't quite work because its heart is too commercial. It should've been more like "Friday Night Lights" rather than "Remember the Titans".

Gridiron Gang Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Gridiron Gang
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment