‘Bountygate’ didn’t really make the news outside of America, but back in 2012 it became one of the biggest scandals in the history of the NFL. An investigation into the New Orleans Saints accused Head Coach Sean Payton of paying his team bonuses for bad tackles – a game-rigging system that paid bounties for knockouts (and paid even more for “cart-offs”), reportedly helping the Saints win the Super Bowl in 2010.
Payton was suspended from the league and banned from coaching, but that didn’t stop him from unofficially managing his 12-year-old son’s school team instead. As true-life sports stories go, Payton’s seems ready-made for an inspirational movie – maybe just not for a leaden, unfunny kids’ comedy starring Kevin James.
Adapted by Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, Home Team casts Sandler’s friend James as Payton, alongside Sandler’s wife and Sandler’s son in a film that could have probably benefited from actually having Adam Sandler in it. Looking slightly uncomfortable imitating Sandler’s angry pessimist schtick, James plays Payton as a sullen red-cap bully – a man more interested in team tactics than he is at reconnecting with estranged son Connor (Tait Blum).
Redemption comes later, of course, but it’s hard to care too much about the arc of a guy who still weighs everything by sports. Returning home to his son and ex-wife Beth (Jackie Sandler, from every Adam Sandler movie since Big Daddy), Payton finds himself a big fish in a very small pond. The Warriors are the worst team in the local league and current coach Troy (Taylor Lautner) can’t work out how to inspire them. Coming in with a notebook full of millionaire NFL ideas (mostly just pep talks and position swaps), Payton slowly turns the team around just in time for a big slow-motion finale set to Fun’s ‘We Are Young’.
Directed by the Kinnane brothers (best known for making a few shorts starring James, keeping things firmly in the Sandler friendship circle), Home Team spends as much time on the pitch as possible – pushing Payton’s family troubles out of the story whenever it can throw in another team huddle instead. The jokes are kept low-key too, suddenly remembering that it’s supposed to be comedy during one weird group-vomit scene, but otherwise aggressively red-blooded throughout. Rob Schneider shows up as Beth’s new-age partner, but he’s more punching bag than comic relief, made up to look like Thom Yorke for jabs about vegan ice cream.
Driven by big-truck energy and lumbered with tired sports clichés and flat jokes, Home Team feels like its target audience is bad dads who don’t like spending time with their sons. Failing at life is bad enough, but failing at football is unforgivable.
Details
- Director: Charles Kinnane, Daniel Kinnane
- Starring: Kevin James, Jackie Sandler, Taylor Lautner
- Release date: January 28 (Netflix)
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