Snoop Dogg, as an egomaniacal retired football star, turns community service into a sport when he sees a chance to rekindle romance with a player’s mom.
It’s not until the film’s postscript that “The Underdoggs” suddenly makes sense: The movie, starring Snoop Dogg as a retired athlete coaching a Pop Warner team, is inspired by the Snoop Youth Football League, the real-life organization that he started in 2005. The film, directed by Charles Stone III, is perhaps best understood as something meant as a fun dedication to the program — but it makes for a forgettable, often aggressively perfunctory work.
Snoop plays Jaycen Jennings, a former star wide receiver who’s become an insufferable has-been and, after a reckless driving charge, is forced to do community service in his hometown. After running into his old flame (Tika Sumpter), whose son is on a helpless youth football team, he decides to coach the squad to burnish his public image and cozy up to his former sweetheart.
It’s a familiar narrative — an embittered narcissist, down on his luck, forced by circumstances to coach, and eventually connect with, a ragtag group of kids — a situation the film knowingly plays with, making frequent references to the Emilio Estevez character in “The Mighty Ducks.” But it can’t come up with any memorable jokes or genuine heart to fill in the beats that it mostly slogs through. The kids in the film are simply too young to make an impact, and Snoop, who is fine enough as an actor, ultimately doesn’t possess the charisma necessary to elevate a lazy script.
What we’re left with instead is the occasional chuckle from Mike Epps as the hapless class clown he usually plays, and the vague outline of other movies that have done this story with more charm.
The Underdoggs
Rated R for pervasive language, sexual references, drug use and some underage drinking. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Prime Video.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
