Gridiron Gang (2006)

In 1990, coaches Sean Porter and Malcolm Moore took the Kilpatrick Mustangs--a football team of hard-core juvenile offenders from California's Camp Kilpatrick juvenile detention center--through their inaugural season, in which they reached the regional championships. In 1993, an Emmy-winning documentary, GRIDIRON GANG, aired on U.S. television. In this fictionalized version of the same name, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stars as Porter, the coach who uses sports as a means to instill self-esteem into a group or boys for whom crime is a way of life.

A former troubled youth who used football as a means to s...
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tay off of the streets, Porter, along with Malcolm Moore (Xibit) now presides over Camp Kilpatrick, where the inmates are gang members, murderers, and drug dealers. Among them are Willie Weathers (Jade York), a gang member doing time for a botched act of revenge. Showing that old rivalries hold true even away from the streets, fellow inmate and rival gang member Calvin Owens (David Thomas) won't let Willie forget that they are sworn enemies. But once Porter introduces football as an outlet, the common goal of winning unites them in ways that no one expected. Sports films are not known for harboring O-Henry-like twists at their conclusions, and GRIDIRON GANG is no exception, but director Phil Joanou (STATE OF GRACE) keeps the proceedings gritty (especially for a PG-13 rating), giving us not only the uplifting and exciting football sequences, but also a handful of heart-pounding--and somewhat graphic--scenes of gang violence, and former Yes member Trevor Rabin's effective score is a nice alternative to the typical pop soundtrack. Not all sweetness and light, GRIDIRON GANG is fine addition to the realm of cinematic sports, leavening the sap with a copious counter-dose of realism.
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The true story of the football team that proved sometimes second chances can make a difference comes to the screen in director Phil Joanou's tale of self-respect and social responsibility on the gridiron. Sean Porter (The Rock) is a detention camp probation officer who oversees the inmates at Camp Kilpatrick in Los Angeles and isn't willing to simply write off the violent offenders who have been placed in his care. Though their prospects for the future are decidedly bleak, Porter is convinced that if he can just get through to his adolescent inmates they may finally be able to turn their lives around and make ame...
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nds for the mistakes of their past. When Porter's proposal of forming a high-school-level football team at Camp Kilpatrick meets with skepticism and resistance in the highest ranks, the determined coach puts his career on the line to prove that even convicted criminals can acquire the tools needed to build a brighter future when given the proper motivation and the means of doing so. Inspired by filmmaker Jac Flanders' 1993 documentary of the same name, Gridiron Gang features a screenplay penned by In the Line of Fire scribe Jeff Maguire, and features a supporting cast that includes Leon Rippy, Kevin Dunn, and Detroit-born rapper-turned-actor Xzibit.
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Sean Porter is de leider van een jeugd-detentieinstelling. Hij heeft de nodige problemen met alle jeugdige delinquenten die onder zijn toezicht vallen en is van mening dat ze meer zelfrespect en sociale verantwoordelijkheid moeten voelen. Hiertoe richt hij samen met zijn medewerker Moore een footballteam op dat op high-school niveau mee moet kunnen draaien. Aan hen en de jongeren de opdracht om aan de scepis van Porters superieuren en de footballcoaches in de league een einde te maken.

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The uplifting story of detention camp probation officer Sean Porter, who creates a high-school-level football team from a ragtag group of dangerous teenage inmates as a means to teach them self-respect and social responsibility. He is joined in this experiment by co-worker, Malcolm Moore. But Porter must first overcome almost universal resistance from the powers that be -- his skeptical bosses and coaches at rival high schools who don't want their players mixing it up with convicted criminals on the football field.

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