American Underdog, based on the book All Things Possible, tells the story of Kurt Warner (played by Shazam!/Chuck's Zachary Levi), the NFL MVP who took more years than most to make it into the league, and his relationship with the woman who would become his wife Brenda Meoni (True Blood/X-Men's Anna Paquin).
This focuses a lot more on the home life/dramatic aspects than the sports aspects. The advertising made this feel like it'd be more about football. That's what I would've liked. I didn't know anything about arena football, which Warner played before making the big leagues, till this film, and I would've liked seeing more stuff like that.
This tries to be a Christianity-light, inspirational drama, but while it's competently made, it feels very by-the-numbers. Though there are a few fun lines, the end result wasn't very interesting for me. Not downright bad, or sleep-inducing, but I could've been doing other things with my time. The script feels like it's scraping the barrel when trying to come up with conflicts. Every big setback Warner encounters feels manufactured, and character actions often don't feel natural.
Levi and Paquin are good actors, but they aren't able to do much with the basic dialogue they're given. They give the latter a short hair cut to match that of the real Brenda, but it doesn't work with Paquin's face at all. Dennis Quaid's in this as coach Dick Vermeil. Isn't in this much (again advertising is deceptive), but he's more entertaining when he's on. Again, Quaid can't do much with the dialogue, but he's clearly having fun and gives a lively borderline over-the-top performance as the coach.
Not recommended. I'm not saying this isn't inspirational and feel-good, but there are other films that do a better job.
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