American Underdog

As a huge NFL fan, I had heard of Warner, but had no clue about his story. This is clearly one of the best real-life underdog stories. The directing was decent, but the writing was a little slow and stale. It needed more action and suspense, and less happy-go-lucky vibes. The 112 min runtime and slow pacing really made the film feel dragged out. The casting and performances were spot-on and convincing, and although a fan of Zachary Levi (especially in Shazam!), I think his overly happy and smiling demeanor was too much to play Warner's character. I kept expecting to hear him yell Shazam! Nevertheless, he acted his heart out, as did Anna Paquin. Still, an amazing and emotional story (have the tissues nearby) and I'm really glad I watched it. It's a well deserved 8/10 from me.

I was fifteen years old during the 1999 Rams season. I still remember the "greatest show on turf" like it was last year, even though it's now been 22 years. The Rams revolutionized the sport that season.

"American Underdog" left me speechless at times. Levi was believable enough as an athlete, but the major theme of the story is family and how sometimes winning isn't really winning if you don't have those to share it with. I had heard the Kurt Warner story a few times, but obviously not with this much detail and heart.

As for the football scenes, I was blown away by how well they did. The play calling especially was well done. The trailer had me worried about the quality of football and my worries quickly subsided only after a few minutes of the film.

The supporting cast also was impressive. I wish we saw more of the beautiful and talented Paquin, who portrayed Brenda Warner and knocked it out the park. Dennis Quaid plays Dick Vermiel and like usual, was awesome. I could go on and on.

I mostly wanted to write this review for football fans (like me) who were skeptical of this film after the trailer. Please see it. I will definitely be buying this film for my personal collection. I hope you all enjoy it as well.

Brenda joined the Marines but received an early discharge when her first child, Zack, developed some medical issues. Kurt was a quarterback for a lower division college in Iowa in the early 1990s. Even though he had dreamed from a young age to play quarterback in the NFL he was not able to get drafted when his year came. So he made ends meet by working at a grocery store but never gave up hope.

Brenda and Kurt managed to forge a relationship and Kurt cherished her two young children. Eventually, even though too old and too inexperienced, Kurt got a job with an NFL team and when their starting QB was injured Kurt took over. It was a gamble but it paid off. And as they say, the rest is history.

This is a very well made movie and from what I can tell by reading bios, plus the extras on the movie disc, appears to be totally authentic. As you would expect with the Warners as producers. Truly a fine story of an American Underdog.

At home on BluRay from our public library.

Powerful, this is just solid. A very inspirational story that will make you tear up....a story that is so rare and unique in football. Perfectly performed by great actors. Highly recommend this for the sport fans.

Okay, this isn't the best movie technically I've ever seen, but it's a good story that needed to be told and I enjoyed it.

The moral conclusions will be obvious once you watch the movie, so I'll just skip over those. And unless you're a diehard cynic, you should.

Yes, it's sentimental, but it's not maudlin (much) and the story is largely factual. If it bothers you, you've got issues. How someone could rate this four stars, I have no idea. The acting is not mediocre, it's quite good. Dead on for the lead characters if you've ever seen the real folk interviewed live.

The overall flow of the movie is reasonable sprightly, though a tad clunky in places.

A good, fun, watch that doesn't go overboard with the emotion... Okay, maybe just a tad, but mainly the movie lets the story speak for itself.