The track record for wrestlers-turned-actors ain’t great; Hulk Hogan, ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper and, faring slightly better, the late Andre The Giant. Pleasant surprise, then, that The Rock, only ever expected to aim for Arnie’s action crown, makes a very decent fist of ‘proper acting’.
For the first half of this true story (inspirational coach Sean Porter turns LA juvenile detention kids into a football team), director Phil Joanou avoids the usual banalities. But in the home stretch, the star’s huge shoulders have to bear the burden of every sports-movie cliché in the book. Happily, the conviction of his performance just about carries everyone over the line.
