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Reviews

The Game Plan

Sweet in its misguided mawkishness

By RICHARD BECK | September 26, 2007

2.0 Stars

THE GAME PLAN: Keep it unsurprisingly simple.

Years after losing his spot on the University of Miami football team to future star tackle Warren Sapp, former pro wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson exacts revenge, here playing Joe Kingman, the star quarterback for the fictional Boston Rebels. He’s got agility, toughness, passion — also a touch of in-game selfishness, but surely someone can show him the error of his ways. Like, from nowhere, an eight-year-old daughter. Turns out that Kingman and his estranged wife managed just one more evening of bliss on the eve of divorce, and with the mother doing humanitarian work in Africa, little Peyton James (Madison Pettis) has a month to spend with her narcissist dad. The ensuing high jinks could not be less surprising, and I’ll never be convinced that football is a metaphor for life, but the movie is sweet in its misguided mawkishness. Come for the end-around blitzes, stay for Rock’s dance as an enchanted tree, complete with tights.

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Topics: Reviews , Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, University of Miami, Warren Sapp

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