Movie Review: 'The Underdoggs'

The Underdoggs (2024)

Directed by Charles Stone III

Written by Danny Segal, Isaac Schamis

Starring Snoop Dogg, Tika Sumpter, Mike Epps

Release Date January 26th, 2024

Published January 25th, 2024

I know it's wrong. I am well aware that the new Amazon Prime-Snoop Dogg comedy, The Underdoggs is objectively, not a good movie. It's amateurish, it's childish, it's derivative, and it's needlessly filthy for a movie that features a mostly child cast. And yet, there is this undeniable element that I cannot deny and that is my affection for Snoop Dogg. Snoop has crafted one of the more eclectic and straight up odd careers in entertainment history. He was a fearsome gangsta rapper who may or may not have been involved in actual murders. He's also a close friend and partner to Martha Stewart. He's known for smoking more weed than your average small American city and is one of the most savvy marketers of his brand going today. He's an enigma, a dynamic, charming and entirely unpredictable character.

It's that same unpredictable, enigmatic charm that Snoop brings to his first film leading role since the failed horror franchise Bones in 2001. Snoop has a laid back charisma that I find irresistible. Snoop is Jaycen Two J's Jennings in The Underdoggs, a disgraced former NFL Wide Receiver better known for his bad behavior than his on the field heroics. In a classic Mighty Ducks scenario, Jaycen gets himself into an accident that is entirely his fault and is sentenced to community service. In this case, Jaycen is sentenced to cleaning up a park in his old neighborhood in Long Beach. While cleaning up dog poop, Jaycen sees a group of kids playing Pee-Wee Football, badly.

One of the parents of the kids playing is an old flame of Jaycen's, played by the beautiful Tika Sumpter. Spying a chance to get off of the Dog-Doo-Patrol, Jaycen proposes that his community service should be coaching this ragtag team of Pee-Wee Footballers. Thus commences a Bad News Bears, underdog story as rote and predictable as that comparison implies. Why, shock of shocks, one of his best players is a girl! That's what passes for story in The Underdoggs. The only thing that sets The Underdoggs apart from every other underdog kids sports movie is how unapologetically filthy the movie is. Whether it is Snoop, Mike Epps as a criminal and longtime friend of Jaycen, or the kids, everyone in The Underdoggs is not safe for work.

The Underdoggs is a very rare Hard R-Rated kids movie. Why anyone would want such a thing? I have no idea, but here we are with The Underdoggs. At the very least, the filthiness is a change of pace from the treacle of other kiddie underdog sports stories. How you take to R-Rated humor, bathroom level gags, and the literal dog doo jokes, is a strong indication of whether or not you will enjoy The Underdoggs. I am not so pretentious as to dismiss a movie just for being filthy so I didn't mind how remarkably unsafe for work The Underdoggs truly is. If you are someone who has children, you might perhaps find it offensive that there are children in this movie using such language. I would only reply that the movie is R-Rated for a reason, it's a kids movie but it is not for a kid audience.

Again, objectively, The Underdoggs is not a good movie. Snoop Dogg is not a convincing former NFL star. What he is however, is a wildly likable person and a fascinating figure of myth and legend. Snoop's ability to adapt and become a brand while remaining a respected veteran of hip hop is wildly fascinating. It's a testament to just how interesting, engaging and genuine Snoop is as a person. He may not be able to act at all but he's still Snoop Dogg and somehow that's enough to make this rinky dink, shaggy dog of an R-Rated kids movie entertaining enough for me to reluctantly, almost guiltily recommend. I feel like I need to apologize as a film critic for recommending a movie like this but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy watching The Underdoggs.

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