The Longshots
Headline: ** Use the Gifts God Gives You **
Title: THE LONGSHOTS
Quality: * * * * Acceptability: -1
SUBTITLES: None
WARNING CODES:
Language: LL
Violence: V
Sex: None
Nudity: None
RATING: PG
RELEASE: August 22, 2008
TIME: 95 minutes
STARRING: Ice Cube, Keke Palmer, Tasha Smith, Jill Marie Jones, Dash Mihok, Miles Chandler, Matt Craven, Garrett Morris, and Michael Colyar
DIRECTOR: Fred Durst
PRODUCERS: Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez and Nick Santora
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: None
WRITERS: Nick Santora and Doug Atchison
BASED ON THE NOVEL/PLAY BY: N/A
DISTRIBUTOR: MGM
CONTENT: (CC, BB, PP, FR, Fe, LL, V, A, M) Strong Christian worldview with strong moral elements (including pastor gives two pep talks to the townspeople, one of them in a sermon, and invites a man back to church) and a positive view of American innovation and strength of character, marred by some foul language and a couple antinomian, biblically aberrant aspects (the foul language reflects a possible antinomian attitude and a church sign says, "God helps those who help themselves," which is not biblical), plus a light feminist tone because story is about a young teenage girl who plays football with boys; 11 obscenities (including pastor uses a crude reference to make a point), two strong profanities and three light profanities, plus boy playing center on a football team uses a comical euphemism to complain about a girl quarterback having to put her hands under his groin to take the ball from him and mean middle school students present a shy student with a toilet plunger to suggest she clean the school toilets; some light football violence; no sex; no nudity; some beer drinking; no smoking; and, heroine's father is irresponsible but her uncle steps up to the plate, mean students mock a shy student but the leader eventually apologizes, people break a window and run away, uncle tells niece to lie to her mother about him teaching her football but they tell the truth when girl seems good enough to try out for football team.
GENRE: Sports Drama
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Young teenagers to adults
REVIEWER: Dr. Tom Snyder, Editor of MOVIEGUIDE®
Please address your comments to:
Harry E. Sloan, Chairman/CEO
Clark Woods, President of Domestic Theatrical Distribution
MGM Studios Inc.
(Partially owned by Sony Corporation of America)
10250 Constellation Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 900067
Phone: (310) 449-3000
Fax: (310) 449-8819
Website: www.mgm.com
SUMMARY: THE LONGSHOTS is an inspiring sports drama with plenty of comedy and a strong, uplifting Christian worldview. It stars Ice Cube and Keke Palmer, who give excellent performances as an uncle and his niece who find happiness and togetherness by using the gifts God has given them.
IN BRIEF:
THE LONGSHOTS is an inspiring sports drama with plenty of comedy. It stars Ice Cube as Curtis Plummer, a down and out former football star who finds himself babysitting his teenage niece, Jasmine. They have little in common, but Curtis discovers that Jasmine has a good arm on her. He convinces her to learn how to be a quarterback to pass the time together. Jasmine turns out to be a football phenom. She makes the local Pop Warner team full of boys from her middle school. The white coach is reluctant to put her in a game, however, but his team is not doing very well. He finally plays Jasmine, and the team starts winning.
THE LONGSHOTS is another in a long line of well-made, inspiring and relatively family-friendly sports movies from Hollywood. This one is not only inspiring and exciting, it also has plenty of funny moments. It is certainly one of the most entertaining, best acted and most heartfelt movies of the year. THE LONGSHOTS has a strong Christian worldview with positive moral elements, but it contains some foul language and minor elements requiring caution for older children.
NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr, publisher of Movieguide Magazine. For more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest Movieguide Magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org. Movieguide is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. Movieguide now offers an online subscription to its magazine version, atwww.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers.
