RIOTUS

The Underdoggs, the new film by Charles Stone III starring Snoop Dogg, feels like a Black comedy from a previous era. A comedy greatly inspired by films like The Bad News Bears and The Mighty Ducks is also connected to Snoop’s personal life of coaching Pee Wee Football for many years. In this, Snoop plays Jaycen Jennings, an arrogant former professional football wide receiver who gets a reckless driving charge; he’s forced to do community service in his hometown of Long Beach, California. He then runs into people he hasn’t seen in decades, but it’s running into his high school sweetheart Cherise (Tika Sumpter); while her son is at his pee wee football practice and their coach flaking, he decides to coach the team. Now let me keep it a buck: this movie isn’t particularly good or a shining example of filmmaking or genius comedic writing. Yet I was laughing at this movie most of the time.

This movie is an R-rated movie, with everyone cursing, from the adults to the children. The characters are pretty simple and are ones you know from movies with this type of story. Snoop is Snoop in this; his usual charismatic self turned up a little bit, but overall, he’s smoking weed and gliding all over the place. He has some funny bits with Mike Epps as his high school friend Kareem, who decides to be his assistant coach. The most vital part is Snoop’s interactions with the kid actors. The scenes he has with the different children to help them with their different issues as they start to form a team feel very authentic. Caleb Dixon, who plays Dwayne, is one of the movie’s standouts as the trendy hypebeast kid with a secret he doesn’t want others to know about. Kylah Davila as Ghost is cool, but I wish there was a little bit more like how that “girl on a boys team” trope was handled in the past.

Now, I know this movie will not be for everyone. I expect this to be considered a bad movie. For me, as a movie that’s on streaming, it was a good time. It reminds me of direct-to-DVD movies that were rampant in the 2000s until streaming took over. Hell, Snoop was in many a successful one of those that historically did well in the urban community (Shout out to Mac & Devin go to High School). This is one of those types of movies. If that’s something that you’re into, you should take some time and watch it. If you’re unsure, watch the trailer. Now, some people will watch it and know they won’t like it and should know better. This movie isn’t deep; it has a good message, and Snoop’s character has an arc. That being said, if you want to know more about Snoop as an actual coach after this, look for Coach Snoop to see some of what inspired this movie.

Score: C