What You’ve Been Searching For

A Review of American Underdog

We have a new studio here at Christian Podcast Central. Why? Because we’re growing, and they said it couldn’t happen. They said we weren’t big enough, we couldn’t be an influential podcast network. We were the underdog or maybe we would say an American underdog podcast network. Maybe they should make a movie about that. Oh wait. That title’s already taken. I saw the movie. I’ve got a review for you. I’m Joel Fieri. Stay tuned.

So Danny, I’m thinking Bruce Willis can play me… Oh, are we back? Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Yeah. I saw the movie American Underdog, and if you don’t know what this movie is, it’s the Kurt Warner’s story. If you don’t know who Kurt Warner is, you’ve probably been under a rock for the last 20 years or so. He’s an NFL quarterback who had a inspirational story of stocking supermarket shelves, struggling to become an NFL quarterback, which was his dream. It’s the story of his wife and how they met and how he worked hard. And somebody gave him a chance and he finally became a hall of fame quarterback. My wife and I saw the movie recently. It’s a movie by the Erwin brothers, which is a couple of Christian brothers who are directors. They’ve done I Can Only Imagine, is one movie that I saw that they did, and they did another one. I’m not quite sure what that was.

They’re a little more high quality filmmakers, especially for Christian movie making. And if you’ve paid attention to my podcast at all, you know that’s one of my subjects I like to talk about is the quality of Christian media because let’s face it, I’m in Christian media. I have experience. I was co-producer on a major documentary a few years back. So this is kind of the stream I swim in. So they have a reputation for being a little bit higher quality as far as Christian filmmakers. And in this movie, they do pull that off. It’s a pretty well-shot movie. It’s pretty well-written. Again, like I said, it’s the story of Kurt Warner, takes him from his childhood where he’s dreaming of becoming an NFL quarterback through college, where he’s at a small college in Iowa.

Nobody’s really looking at him. He’s kind of cocky. He doesn’t really… They play up the angle that he doesn’t know how to stay in the pocket and be a team player and follow his coaches. And eventually, nobody gives him his chance. And for five years or so, he kind of wallows. At one point, he has a chance and blows it. And then he goes stocking supermarket shelves to keep his family, or actually at the time, I think it was his girlfriend and her children, afloat. A sub-plot or a sub-story is how him and his wife met, his wife, Brenda, and him met and how their story of how she helped him reach his dream. Now they’re advertising it or it’s seen as a Christian movie. The one criticism I have of that is I didn’t get that from the movie really. I mean, it’s mentioned a couple times. For most of the movie though, it’s really… You don’t get the sense of Christianity as much part of their story at all.

They meet in a bar and they eventually are living together. The movie doesn’t state it explicitly, but it is implicit that they’re living together. I think at one point, Brenda, played by I think Anna Paquin is her name, she mentions in passing that her religion is more of a relationship, which is kind of weakly says it. And then later on asked Kurt if he’d like to live together. So it didn’t really come across as a Christian message for most of the movie. And for most of the movie, Kurt doesn’t really mention his faith at all. It’s more a movie about him pursuing his dream to be an NFL quarterback and how no one will give him a chance, and he finally gets the chance. At the very end, he does mention… It’s not until the very end of the movie that Kurt mentions his faith at all. And the actor’s name, Levi something.

It escapes me now, but so it’s kind of a story, an inspirational story, an American story of two people that you know are now Christians and have a Christian witness now. They eventually do get married. Another sub story or sub plot is the relationship between Kurt Warner and Brenda’s son who is blind by a horrible accident or horrible situation from her previous husband, which is really a sad story. But it’s very touching, the kid, they got to play. Her son, I don’t know if he really is blind but he did a phenomenal job, one of the best child acting jobs I’ve ever seen, is really endearing. So it’s really just a story of Kurt Warner, a really, really good guy, a really nice guy who you want to succeed. You want him to get his chance to be the quarterback, but you already know. If you know the story at all, you already know he’s going to, and he is going to do it in an unbelievable way.

And it’s funny, in talking about the previous movie of I Can Only Imagine, which I remember from about six or seven years ago, it’s the story of the writer or the leader of the band that wrote the song, I Can Only Imagine, MercyMe I think it was. And in that movie, I know that the main character, the lead singer spent the whole almost an entire movie kind of complaining and whining about how he wasn’t a famous Christian singer. He was a Christian singer. He led music a lot, but he was kind of whining that he never had his chance to really go big. And I remember thinking in that movie, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you. Sorry. I mean, if you’re Christian musician and your goal and your aim and your calling is to glorify God, why are you so worried that you don’t have your chance to go big time?

And it’s kind of the same sense I got in this movie. Kurt just one wants to go big time. He just wants to be an NFL quarterback, and it doesn’t seem glorifying God or following Christ or being a Christian witness, it doesn’t seem to be a part of it, which is really curious as it’s being touted as a Christian film. But with all sports movies to sports fans like myself, you always go into a sports movie wondering are the sports scenes going to be kind of cringey? Are they going to do it well? In this movie, they did the football scenes pretty well.

The actor that played Kurt Warner knows how to throw a football. And he knows how to look like he’s a football player and he belongs on a football field. So do most of the actors they have playing the Rams football players and certainly the guy playing Ray Lewis of the Ravens in Kurt’s first game is spot on. If you don’t know who Ray Lewis was, he was a beast and this guy played him pretty well. So that was one of the best parts of the movie was that game. And as far as the casting itself, the casting I thought was pretty good except for one guy, one person, and I’ll get to that in a little bit, but most of the cast were good actors. The story was pretty well written, but there were some gaps and some things that didn’t quite make sense, especially as far as Kurt and Brenda’s relationship. At one point they break up and you’re not really sure why, and then you’re not really sure if they’re living together or not.

And how do you resolve that with your Christian faith? They don’t get into that at all. So there’s some holes and some gaps, but the writing is good in that it keeps you interested and it’s a good paced movie. Like I said, the football scenes are pretty good. The only criticism I would have of that is the Rams uniforms look like high school uniforms. I don’t know why. They got everything else right but the numbers are real small. And then when they switched to actual film footage of the games, the actual Rams games played, the Rams uniforms look different. And I’m like, “Couldn’t you have spent a little bit more money on prop budget or whatever?” But that kind of was a nitpicky thing. But again, as a sports fan, it’s something we notice. And the only criticism I have of the casting is I’m an Aztec San Diego State, the actor they got to play Marshall Faulk couldn’t catch a pass.

I’m sorry, Marshall Faulk was a blur. And the actor whose actual name is OJ Simpson, believe it or not OJ Simpson playing Marshall Faulk, but I think I could outrun him. But again, that’s just another minor criticism. You can’t get everything right but that’s also my bias. So overall it was a good movie. It was entertaining. It was worth seeing the story… For just the story itself is worth seeing because it actually is a true story and it’s a story that you couldn’t make up. And if you follow the NFL at all, you know the story and you know they did a pretty faithful job for it. But the Christian witness to me just wasn’t there, it was kind of tacked on and kind of an aside. And if you already know they’re Christians and if you’re a Christian going in, you kind of get that affirm.

But if you’re not a Christian, I can’t imagine a non-Christian watching this movie thinking, “Wow, faith played a big part in that for Kurt and Brenda.” It just didn’t. So as far as rating, I’ll give it three and a half Bible bookmarks out of five. Like I said, it was entertaining enough, but there’s too many missed opportunities I guess, or too many holes in it that didn’t make sense to me. I recommend seeing it if you haven’t seen it already, it was mostly at Christmas time, but I know it’s still in the theater so go see it.

And I didn’t really intend to have this podcast be a media review or critic type podcast, but I did TV show with The Chosen and I did Mark Driscoll’s podcast so now I’m doing a movie and who knows, I’ll probably make it a regular part of this. As long as they keep producing thoughtful and quality Christian entertainment, I’ll review it. And that’s what this was. It could have been better, but again, things are getting better in the Christian media world, which is a good thing. So this is what you’ve been searching for. I’m Joel Fieri, this is our new studio. What do you think? Tell us in the comments, subscribe and most of all, go to christianpodcastcentral.com. Thanks for listening.