American Underdog

This Christian sports drama brazenly plucks your heartstrings, but it's hard to deny it's an enjoyable feel-good movie.

I left “American Underdog” feeling like a fiddle that had been well-played. It was not unpleasant.

This uplifting sports story is firmly in the mold of “Hoosiers,” “Rudy” and “Remember the Titans.” It’s formulaic and not at all subtle: a dream, followed by hardship, setbacks and ultimately triumph. But it’s hard to deny such an earnest, feel-good flick that is upfront about plucking your heartstrings, and at least has the courtesy to do it well.

What you may not know is that this based-on-true story starring Zachary Levi as NFL quarterback Kurt Warner is that it’s also a Christian movie. Directing brothers Andrew and Jon Erwin are veterans of the genre, also helming last year’s “I Still Believe.” Based on Warner’s own book, the screenplay is supplied by sports-movie specialist David Aaron Cohen (“Friday Night Lights,” “The Miracle Season”).

Faith-based filmmaking is close to completing a journey I long ago predicted, reaching a point where its movies are nearly indistinguishable from mainstream cinema. There isn’t any overt proselytizing going on in “American Underdog,” and indeed there is only one passing conversation about religion, and I think one scene in a church.

Warner was and is a famously devout athlete, known for pointing two fingers skyward to praise god after any notable achievement on the gridiron. But honestly, it’s more of a straight sports/relationship story to the extent I doubt anyone unawares would even peg it as faith-based filmmaking.

Levi has a passing resemblance to Warner, both tall, good-looking dark-haired dudes. (Though I’ll note that, at 41, he’s rather old to be playing Warner over the course of this story, which depicts him from about ages 23 to 28. But, Hollywood.)

He portrays Warner as a well-meaning if occasionally stubborn, lug-headed guy who grew up dreaming of playing NFL football, despite not being heavily recruited and mostly riding the bench during five years at the University of Northern Iowa.

The big story in the movie — in the first half at least, even more important than football — is his relationship with Brenda (Anna Paquin), an older divorced woman with two children, including a legally blind son, Zach (Hayden Zaller), who quickly attaches himself to Warner as a father figure.

Paquin, done up in a slightly off-putting short hairdo, is solid as a woman who is vulnerable but level-headed, seeing something special in Warner while at the same time being wary of the many hurdles that exist to them building a life together.

Undrafted by the NFL, Warner is invited to the Green Bay Packers camp but sent packing before he even gets a chance to throw a ball. He winds up stocking shelves at a local grocery store, living with Brenda and barely scraping by. In one harrowing scene, they run out of gas in a snowstorm and the chance of them all literally perishing is a real one. Self-doubt and turmoil in the relationship are omnipresent.

“Life isn’t about what you can achieve; it’s about what you can become,” is the advice he gets from Brenda’s dad.

When a chance is finally offered, Warner is affronted by it: Bruce McGill plays Jim Foster, the man who started the Arena Football League. He offers Warner a chance to play, even if it’s cut-down pigskin in livestock pavilions and such with the Iowa Barnstormers. After some shaky starts adjusting to the lightning-fast speed, he soon becomes a star.

Eventually this leads to a tryout with the St. Louis Rams under coach Dick Vermeil, played by Dennis Quaid in charming, crotchety performance. Vermeil burned out on football and returned after 15 years away, leading to a lot of doubters that he was too old and behind the times to run a championship team. A self-described underdog, the grizzled coach sees a shared something in Warner others don’t, including the win-or-walk offensive coordinator (Chance Kelly).

There’s a fair amount of football action that is staged well enough, though Levi’s throwing motion doesn’t exactly resemble that of a howitzer-armed NFL gunslinger. The crunching tackles and spiraling passes look legit enough, though. They’re punctuated by Quaid hopping along the sidelines with amusing commentary like “He’s hot!” or “What a show, what a show!”

“American Underdog” won’t win any awards for originality or subtlety. It’s a straight-ahead sports redemption story with the barest patina of religion giving it a little extra gloss. Kurt Warner’s true life story is literally one in a million, so it was inevitable that someone would get around to telling it in winning fashion.