Customer Reviews

Gridiron Gang (Full Screen Edition)

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Gridiron Gang" is the true story of Sean Porter (The Rock), a detention camp officer who tries to make something out of the kids in the camp at which he works. He attempts to instill discipline, honor, teamwork, and pride through football. He feels that this will help to keep them from going back to their old lifestyle once released. He wants to help them break the cycle of violence. Initially met with some resistance, he manages to schedule a season and help the kids make something of themselves.

While being a typical "feel good" sports movie, "Gridiron Gang" feels less clichéd than the majority of these kinds of films. The acting is good all around, and The Rock is well suited for the role of Porter. It is truly remarkable what the real Sean Porter accomplished. I liked this film more than I anticipated, and recommend it.

What Gridiron Gang lacks cinematic acheivement, it more than makes up for in heart.

For those that don't know, Gridiron Gang is based on the documentary of the same name which itself was the true account of a youth correctional facility using the sport of football to teach kids all the things the normal process was failing to do. It's an important film because it, like the documentary, point out real problems that cities all over this country have not only with youth crime but most importantly the failure we are as a society to rehabilitate.

The previews, and indeed the film, focus a lot on the football aspects of this film almost to a fault. I say this because this story is about the achievements made with these kids off the field rather than on it. We shouldn't be caring so much about whether these kids win a football game as much as we should be caring whether they do something to cause them to end up back in prison. I say almost to a fault because while there are considerable football scenes, it is important to see these kids' achievements on the field in order to make sense of their acheivements off it, and while there may be a lot of action on the field, it never overshadows the fact that this is a tough-love teacher film a la 'Lean on Me' and 'Stand and Deliver', not a sports movie.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as coach Sean Porter isn't going to be winning any academy awards for this film, but he does show considerable screen presence and enough talent as an actor to pull off a dramatic role like this. Xybit as Malcome Moore not only adds a certain credibility to this film, but I found his parts to be to few and far between which should speak to his talents. The rest of the cast and especially the kids I found to be highly believable. A few times the dialogue they would have to say was a bit too cheesy (or too profound), but one can hardly fault them for that.

The strength of this film lies in the characters and the story. Sean Porter is a hero who had to fight against a society that doesn't care about these kids. These kids, while criminals deserving punishment (and rehabilitation), are kids who live in a world where any one of us would likely have grown up the same way. Sean Porter doesn't work miracles and turn all these kids into honor students and model citizens. What he does is sacrifice of himself to make a dent. There is a touching realism to that as well as a profound realization that we could make miracles instead of dents if the rest of us were more like Sean Porter.

Gridiron Gang is a very enjoyable film. It has it's flaws, but at it's core it's a very human film capable of winning you over with it's moving and inspirational story. I found myself questioning some directorial decisions of the film, but I was never bored. It will almost certainly find it's way into my DVD collection eventually.

I would recommend this movie for anyone who wishes to watch a film that shows true emotion, that shows real characters overcoming obstacles in their lifes. This is without a doubt, The Rock's best performances in a movie. So if you enjoy a hard-hitting, emotional underdog story, then pick up The Gridiron Gang, because it won't disappoint. Absolutely awesome movie in my opinion. Its worth your money.

Who really wants to see another feel-good movie about a tough educator who takes on both the most violent juvenile delinquents and "the system," raising them from the abyss of failure and imprisonment to success that they wouldn't have dared dream of only months before? Do we really need another formulaic sports flick, "based on a true story" about a coach taking his rag-tag team of underdogs all the way to the city championship?

You bet we do!

In what's being touted as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's dramatic debut, Gridiron Gang showcases both the former professional wrestler's physical prowess and his emerging acting chops as tough-as-nails juvenile detention officer Sean Porter. Frustrated by the 75 percent recidivism rate of the teen felons in his charge at the Camp Kilpatrick reformatory in Los Angeles County, Porter sees that the vicious circle of violence, gang activity, and growing up without fathers has doomed them to wasted lives behind bars.

He keeps sending one troubled kid in particular, Roger (Michael J. Pagan), to "the hole" for punishment.

"Where're you gonna be in four years?" Porter grills him.

"In jail," the sulking youth answers.

"No! You're going to be dead!"

Sure enough, even though Roger is trying to go straight, while on release a week later he is gunned down in a drive-by shooting while hanging out with his old gang. Soon Roger's brother Willie (Jade Yorker) winds up at the same reformatory when he shoots his mother's abusive live-in boyfriend.

Driving home from work one night, Porter spots a group of kids playing football under the lights and has an inspiration. As a last-ditch effort to try to turn around the presumably unsalvageable lives of Camp Kilpatrick's murderers, rapists, and carjackers, he launches a football program.

Porter cajoles many of the toughest youths to join the Mustang team, where nobody gets a free ride and membership has to be earned. Attempting to convince the skeptical administration to fund his team, he reminds them that "these kids have never worked hard for anything in their lives." Once his kids amble onto the practice field, they learn that being tough is more than bullying and posturing, but requires discipline, commitment, and self-restraint.

What impressed me most were the sequences in which Porter builds up the team, drilling them through tough workouts and scrimmages, testing their endurance, and, for the first time in their lives, forging their characters. As with Spencer Tracy's Father Flanagan in the 1938 classic Boys Town, Porter operates on the premise that his boys are not inherently bad. "You are somebody," he tells them, "and are worthy of something." But his attempts to inspire the team go beyond mere pep talks: Porter instills in them the lesson that true self-esteem can be gained only by achievement, not merely by inflating their egos with false praise. "It's a whole new world out there when you earn things," he tells them.

Having Coach Porter as the first man in their lives to believe in them and serve as a father figure fills the youths with false expectations at their first game. Despite a couple of good tackles early on, the Mustangs get a rude awakening once their opponents gather steam. After getting stomped on for a 38-0 loss, not only do many on the team start to question whether the football program is worth it, but so do some of Camp Kilpatrick's administrators.

"We wanted to create self-esteem, but it was just the opposite," one of them laments to Porter. "These kids can't handle that kind of disappointment. We have to pull the plug."

Just as everyone seems willing to throw in the towel, one of Porter's players, Junior (Setu Taase), discovers that self-esteem is more than immediate gratification, and requires diligent effort even in the face of crushing defeat. Junior convinces his teammates why they must not give up. "It's like I told you, Coach," he explains to Porter, "we're tired of being losers." Predictably, the Mustangs improve and fight their way to the playoffs.

While the action on the field is shot a little too claustrophobically with telephoto lenses, the movie as a whole doesn't suffer much. Trevor Rabin (of the group Yes) provides an emotionally rousing soundtrack. But the pillar of the film is The Rock, who supports it with a strong performance. A former University of Miami football standout, he brings credibility and conviction to his role. While he's come a long way from his "Layeth the Smacketh Down" WWF days, The Rock is still not exactly an accomplished and subtle actor. Of course, tough kids don't need understatement and nuance--they need sturdy and straightforward. Think Lee Marvin's Major Reisman from The Dirty Dozen, crossed with Glenn Ford's Mr. Dadier in Blackboard Jungle.

In the durable genre of tough educators who turn around troubled inner-city youths, The Rock's turn on screen in Gridiron Gang doesn't rise to the level of Morgan Freeman's breakthrough performance in Lean on Me (1989), or Sidney Poitier's memorable turn in To Sir, with Love (1967). Neither does Gridiron Gang belong in the same league with other great sports flicks about underdog teams who go all the way to the top, like Hoosiers (1986) or Friday Night Lights (2004).

But, as a movie which straddles both genres, it really gels and will lift the spirits of most viewers. Sure, Gridiron Gang is formulaic. But what makes it enjoyable and moving is the true-life example of how one man turns around the lives of troubled kids by instilling them with pride, faith in themselves, and awareness that they are not born criminals, but possess the free will to make productive lives for themselves.

No-excuses self-esteem requires a formula, too; and Gridiron Gang shows how it's done.

Heartwarming. It will make you laugh, make you cry. Make you want to work out.

I loved this movie. Based on a true story - at the end, they show the real guys - liked that.

the Rock, is a hunk, no need to argue that. Hot. mmmmmm. But, more importantly, he was really good in this film. He is a worker at this prison for boys, and gets disgusted with the return rate, and death rate of the kids who get out. so, he comes up with a plan to help these boys.

as a mommy, I loved all the boys. wanted to hug them all. sniff. very good casting of all of the kids.

truly a heartwarming story. good for kids over 14. swearing and some violence. actually would be very educational for boys that think they are real "tough" - hummm, I can think of a few! Good lessons, good entertainment.

buy it.

Before it was a movie, Gridiron Gang was a 1993 Emmy-Award winning documentary filmed by Lee Stanley, about the Camp Kilpatrick football program's astounding inaugural 1990 season. Real life coaches Sean Porter and Malcolm Moore led a team comprised of juvenile criminals to their region's championship game. It was only a matter of time before the inspirational story became a movie.

According to a troubling stat displayed at the outset of the film, there are 120,000 kids in our juvenile detention system, and 75% of them end up incarcerated. Sean Porter, having been a troubled juvenile himself, straightened out his life thanks, in some part, to football. Now, he toils as a beleaguered correctional officer in Camp Kilpatrick, L.A. County Probation Dept. Times are bleak at Camp Kilpatrick, as inner city gang rivalries, brittle temperaments, and incessant posturings often give rise to tensions and eventual brutal confrontations between the hardened young wards. As a last resort to get thru to the kids, the pro-active Sean Porter decides to initiate a football program for the correctional facility. This program, he hopes, would instill in the kids a sense of teamwork and unity and give them something to belong to, outside of their various gangs and 'hoods. Along the way, Coach Porter struggles to overcome sundry challenges, such as procuring team funding, finding high school teams to play his Mustangs, overcoming the vast skepticism facing his program, and, perhaps, most problematic of all, getting the kids to believe that they could be winners. Throughout all this, Porter must also cope with the fact that his mother is terminally ill. Porter and the Mustangs are given four weeks in which to get in some kind of playing shape before the first game is officially kicked off. The contentious team, at first, finds it rough going as most of them seem to be raw athletes, unaware of the concept of teamwork and the intricacies of the set plays. For Pete's sake, they have trouble spelling their team nickname. An early loss to a powerhouse team threatens to devastate the kids' already spotty self-esteem. Ongoing internal conflicts continue to plague the group. Still, ultimately, Gridiron Gang tells the uplifting story of the hardluck Kilpatrick Mustangs, as they learn to squash their differences, put aside their loser's mentality, become a team, and compete in the regional playoffs.

So this is a true story and well worth watching because of it. Impassioned people who try to make a difference and who go above and beyond their expected duty should always be put under the spotlight and lauded universally. That's why I loved movies like Stand and Deliver, Lean On Me, and even the recent TNT movie The Ron Clark Story. Those cats actually accomplished all those great things. Which leads us back to Gridiron Gang and its real life hero Sean Porter. Gridiron Gang is a gritty, root-for-the-underdog sports drama, as well as yet another cautionary commentary on our country's ever-escalating inner-city struggles. Being able to film in the actual Camp Kilpatrick facility in the Santa Monica Mountains lends Gridiron Gang a sense of authenticity and immediacy. Hopelessness hovers and lingers in the shots filmed of the youth probation camp. Sadly juxtaposed with the coming together of the football team are scenes of other, non-football playing delinquents who continue to stay unreformed and be thrown in the isolation box. Not everyone can be helped; not everyone wants to be helped.

The actual football sequences are decent, but nothing spectacular. Remember, these are supposed to be high-school level kids who aren't that proficient with football anyway. When they do improve and start to string out a number of wins, they still don't achieve the level of NFL players. So, the thrills we get from the action on the field are derived mostly from our emotional investment in the characters. Still, there are football moments which will make you applaud. In fact, this movie contains several hanky moments which will make the average person's eyes well up.

This is the Rock's best performance to date. Now, I know, that's really not saying much, as he's mostly done action films so far (though he did stretch out in Be Cool). But he seems to have deep emotional connections with this film. Even if he couldn't quite pull off some of those hokey, motivational pep talks, I gotta give him full marks for genuine effort. He is ferocious and sincere in this role and even acquits himself fairly well in his teary-eyed scenes. He also draws on his past football experience as he seems to be right at home on the gridiron physically, as well as being credible with the football dialogue. Instead of resorting to wiggling his trademark eyebrow or deepening those two vertical furrows on his brow, Dwayne Johnson actually tries a hand at acting here.

Hip hop artist Xzibit has a nicely subdued but effectual role as Malcolm Moore, Porter's fellow correctional officer and Mustangs coach. Malcolm Moore, by the way, played football in college and in the pros back in the day (USC & the L.A. Rams). The one to watch, though, is Jade Yorker. As Willie Weathers, a teenager grieving over his cousin's recent murder by a rival gang, and who later fatally shoots his mother's abusive man, he typifies the lost and angry kid ensnared in slum poverty, stuck in society's bottom rung, and given few chances to climb higher. But Willie is lucky enough to have the poetry-reciting Danyelle in his life, and, with her and as a Mustang, he sees possibilities that go beyond the scope of barbed fences and prison bars. Jade Yorker, more than any of the other young actors, brings his character to full realization. David V. Thomas as Kelvin Owens, member of a gang at war with Willie's 88th Street homies, and Setu Taase as violent Samoan Junior Palaita bring the same level of intensity and that feral hostility simmering just below the skin, which, more often than not, erupts to the surface. The other kids in the cast are almost equally as good and, certainly, are equally as honest in their portrayals. Brandon Smith, as Bug the cheerleading team waterboy (whose past crime is disturbing, in light of his excessive youth and cheerful nature) provides some moments of levity.

I urge you to stick around for several fascinating clips from the original documentary, which are shown with the closing credits. These clips showcase the real Sean Porter, who looks to be just about as big as the Rock and they also show how close the Rock's lines stuck to Porter's original words. It's worth noting that upon hearing the by now prerequisite "What Are They Doing Now" segment at the end, reality manages to push aside the Cinderella elements of the story. None of these guys ended up playing pro football; most were lucky to end up playing the sport in high school. Sadly, as stated by the Rock's voiceover, not all the original Mustangs got out and were able to turn things around. But enough of them did stop gangbanging and resorting to crime so that Sean Porter's maverick program (as well as the concept of second chances) is fully justified. On the Amazon rating system, I think Gridiron Gang merits 3 and a half stars. So give this one a chance. Its heart is very much in the right place, and it's a good movie.

I enjoyed this film the same way I enjoy so many other of the formula underdog stories such as Remember the Titans, Lean on Men, Stand by Me etc. The film really doesn't have many surprises. This is essentially the Sean Porter story. Porter is a man who works in a juvenile detention center that has a 75% return rate. Wanting to give the kids something to work toward and bond, he starts up a football team and manages to get them into a high school football division. What follows is the standard fair. You have the white, blacks, latinos and various gang members who hate each other at first coming together to win football games. The young actors are good, and Dwayne Johnson(The Rock) puts in his best performance yet. Like I mentioned earlier, you won't find anything amazing, but if you like the genre, this is a fine film for you.

The rock aint much of an actor but on this one here i got to give it to him. Great movie, great message, just put it like this the best his ever done

Great movie. Never even heard of the movie before but my husband and I like football and we've been watching some of the Rock's movies. He is a personable actor whose side you want to be on. It was a true story and that made it even more poignant. We've watched it several times already having just received it last week.

It seems like the past few years have seen a run on sports films that demonstrate the power of learning sportsmanship on a team level can alter the lives of the misbegotten youths suffering from the angst of society's perceptions. We've been through soccer, baseball, tennis, dance, track and football: GRIDIRON GANG uses football as the pivotal point, but due to the presence of a fine script by Jeff Maguire who adapted Jac Flanders documentary film, and cohesive poignant direction by Phil Joanou who knows how to move a large cast around and keep it personal, and most of all due to the overpoweringly fine performance by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson this film is so honest and uplifting that it doesn't leave a dry eye in the audience.

The story is well known: Probation Officer Sean Porter (Johnson) is frustrated that the boys in his camp for young criminals when released to the streets show 75% returning and a large number dying in gang related violence. He sees this trend as being due to the lack of self-esteem in kids whose lives outside are demeaning and encourage failure. He gathers support from his fellow workers Malcolm Moore (Xzibit), Paul Higa (Leon Rippy) and Ted Dexter (Kevin Dunn) and gradually builds confidence in his project to organize a football team of his inmates. We wisely get to know the background of a few of the more difficult incarcerated boys, a fact that makes the project more full of tension and understanding of the problems to be resolved. Though most of the cast are unknowns, they are fine actors in this film: Jade Yorker, David V. Thomas, Setu Taase, Mo, James Earl, Trever O'Brien, Brandon Mychal Smith, Danny Martinez, Joe Seo, and Joey Lucero.

Through the team's growth as a unit they confront and manage to cope with problems and grow into goal-driven, good spirited young men. The presence of Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is stunningly underplayed and all the more powerful for it. This is a sensitive performance that places Johnson in an all new category of respect as an actor. The film is overly long (120 minutes) due to repeated games the team plays and for devotees of Football that will be a positive aspect. But far more important than the games is the quiet growing of trust and faith that shows in the faces of this fine cast. Recommended viewing, especially for those who think they have seen too many sports related do-good films! Grady Harp, January 07