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3.5/5
The remarkable story of Kurt Warner, college football star turned grocery store shelf stocker turned NFL Super Bowl MVP.
This is a truly awe-inspiring true story of human triumph and perseverance and makes for a perfect feel-good narrative. It is a very traditional sports movie, doing nothing to reinvent or reinterpret the genre. It leans hard into every tried and true trope and cliche and much of the dialogue is ripped straight from the playbook of sports movie platitudes.
This film, directed by The Erwin Brothers and produced by Kingdom Story Company, emphasizes the Christian faith of Kurt and Brenda Warner but stops short of preaching or proselytizing. Rather, the characters are portrayed as having relationships with God and the film shows how those relationships impact their respective journeys. This approach makes the faith-based film much more accessible to a wider audience—encouraging to those that share the character’s faith, but not repellant to those who don’t.
The film was made on a low budget and, for the most part, makes the most of its limited resources. Apart from a few moments—some of which are unfortunately pretty glaring—the financial disadvantages do not substantially detract from the experience. The football scenes are filmed well and feature some unique camera tricks I hadn’t seen before. But the obvious green-screening was an occasional distraction.
The film features two very good central performances from Zachary Levi and Anna Paquin who do a good job capturing the characters and the weight and trauma they carry. Unfortunately, with no attempt at de-aging, it is sometimes difficult to buy them as college-age youths. Adam Baldwin, Dennis Quaid, Chance Kelly, and Bruce McGill give nice supporting performances. The movie tugs at heartstrings, is effective at manipulating emotions, and has a satisfying ending that will make you want to cheer.
Hot take: Its low-budget constraints can be overly distracting at times, but Levi’s charisma and Warner’s truly rousing story make him an underdog anyone can root for.
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