American Underdog

Kurt Warner played at college and did not make the professional league. He waited while stocking shelves in a supermarket, played arena football, and went unsummoned for years. Approaching thirty he was a backup at the St. Louis Rams; when the starter was injured he took the field and won the championship that season. The subject is not sporting success but the waiting. The best part of the film is not the second half of the career but the years when no door opened; through that period Warner was with Brenda, a woman with two children, one of whom is blind. The form is standard sports biography: training sequences, game edits, family rooms. The matches are mixed with real broadcast footage. The production is a true story. The period Warner spent stocking shelves became one of the most retold personal ascents in the league. Hayden Zaller, who plays Warner's stepson Zack, is genuinely blind. Jon and Andrew Erwin direct. Zachary Levi plays Warner and Anna Paquin plays Brenda. Who it is for: viewers who like sports biography and family-centred American drama. Who it is not for: anyone hoping it will leave the template; the film never steps outside the familiar beats.