American Underdog

American Underdog

“American Underdog” is based on the memoir of the same name, written by Kurt Warner who is played in this adaptation by Zachary Levi. Some might know Warner as the quarterback for the Rams and Cardinals; others might remember him as that guy whose career was derailed when he got caught building a robot to play quarterback for him because his arm fell off or something.

Regardless, if you’re coming into “American Underdog” expecting a run-of-the-mill inspirational sports movie about how an underdog overcame all odds to become champion, well, you’ll probably leave feeling like you just watched a run-of-the-mill inspirational sports movie about how an underdog overcame all odds to become champion.

Kurt and Zack are lying next to each other on the kitchen floor because that’s what Zack wants them to do. Brenda’s mother finds them there (she lives there). She jokes that he must be here to see Brenda, and she’s not worried about him being an intruder because what intruder lies on his back on the kitchen floor next to a blind kid?

It’s such a strange scene (in a good way) that it could only have come from life, and there are many scenes like it, including one set in an icy winter where the family car runs out of gas on an interstate highway and Kurt has to leave them there and walk for miles to fill a gas can and then walk all the way back with it. What does that have to do with football? Nothing, but that kind of thing is always happening, and you never see it in movies.

The problem with “American Underdog,” though, is that it doesn’t ever really connect the modest virtuousness of Kurt and Brenda to Kurt’s ascension as a quarterback. The movie sets itself apart from other sports films by keeping its focus trained tightly on this central relationship so much so that you could almost make exactly this same film about some guy who drove a bus or managed a shoe store and went on to win bus driver of the year or shoe store manager of the year, if you could get someone to finance something like that (a big “if”).

But even if your point was this person came into the profession and became wildly successful despite not being the kind of person who normally gets within shouting distance of such a dream, you’d still have to give audiences some sense of what those qualities were other than repeating over and over again “He was a nice guy who believed in God and was good to his girlfriend and her son.”

I understand why they made this movie for this part of the entertainment market, I don’t know how you’d go about making that movie, but still, it’s frustrating. That football doesn’t know whether its players are good people could be the subject of a faith and values film, too.

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