‘The Underdoggs’ is Snoop Dogg’s profane tribute to youth football
Once again, there’s so much drama in the LBC, thanks to Snoop D-O-double-G
It’s unbelievable, the career trajectories followed by the most popular surviving rappers of the 1990s. Dr. Dre co-founded a headphone company and sold it to Apple for billions. Ice Cube founded a basketball league and was just honored by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Ice-T, whose song “Cop Killer” set off a major cultural conflagration in 1992, has been playing a cop on Law & Order: SVU for nearly 25 years. Jay-Z has been a guest of honor at the White House, and Eminem at Detroit Lions playoff games.
Several of those performers headlined a nostalgia-tinged Super Bowl halftime show two years ago, and among the participants was Snoop Dogg. The subject of significant handwringing in the early ‘90s — and also of a murder charge — Snoop has settled into a strange phase of celebrity, frequently appearing in TV commercials and befriending Martha Stewart. And now, the 52-year-old Snoop has added inspirational sports movies to his resume.
Granted, the new The Underdoggs isn’t exactly a family-friendly example of the genre, with a massive surfeit of creative cursing just in the first few minutes, with the original Bad News Bears movie serving as an obvious inspiration. Indeed, it’s debuting this Friday not on Disney+ with the bulk of the rest of the underdog sports films, but on Prime Video.
In the film, directed by Charles Stone III, there are a few laughs, here and there. But I’m not exactly sure who this movie is for. It’s Coach Carter, except with lots of pot smoking, sex talk, and plentiful use of a certain word Samuel L. Jackson is known for using in most of his movies besides Coach Carter. And the kids match Snoop, curse word for curse word.
Snoop plays Jaycen Jennings, a retired and disgraced NFL star. It’s made clear that he’s a Terrell Owens/Keyshawn Johnson type, a wide receiver frequently accused of being selfish and “flashy.” He dances after touchdowns, fights with teammates, frequently departs teams on bad terms, and generally personifies most established standards of NFL bad behavior. He even, like many of his real-life inspirations, hosts a post-retirement podcast, and while it’s implied he’s in a bad place, he still lives in a massive house, maintains a car collection, and doesn’t appear to have pissed away his money.
Following one incident, Jennings is sentenced to community service, in his old hometown of Long Beach, which any fan of his ‘90s music can tell you is also where Snoop hails from. One TV yakker character, who doubles as an opposing coach, is pretty clearly inspired by Colin Cowherd. However, the film missed out on an opportunity by not basing a character on New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick — who has made a career out of directing apoplectic rage at Jaycen Jennings-type athletes, as well the malign influence of rap music on sports.
Following a reunion with an old flame (Tika Sumpter), he becomes the coach of a youth football team- first as an excuse to get in the old girlfriend’s pants, a scheme that his pretty criminal sidekick-turned-assistant (Mike Epps) says is inspired by Emilio Estevez and his Mighty Ducks character. But the scheme provides his road to redemption- even if Sumpter, who is ten years younger than Snoop and looks even younger than that, is supposed to be his high school sweetheart. And one episode involving alcohol and minors would likely be enough to get his probation revoked.
In real life, Snoop was a youth football coach and founder of the Snoop Youth Football League, leading to a Netflix reality show called Coach Snoop, and an annual championship game called the Snooper Girl.
Sure, the football team seems to only have about eight people on it for some reason, but they are the source for most of the movie’s comedy. The kids, upon meeting their new coach, don’t appear to know much about his on-field football career, but they can list his scandals and arrests chapter and verse (they all have comprehensive knowledge of Game of Thrones). In real life, they’d probably know him better from playing as him in Madden.
The Underdoggs is no great addition to the inspirational sports genre, but it does have its moments, and Snoop once again proves a magnetic leading man. And now that there’s suddenly a right-wing freakout about Black people flying planes, his 2004 movie Soul Plane seems about due for rediscovery, with its 20th anniversary coming up this May.