If you had told me ten years ago that Fred Durst/Limp Bizkit's feature length directorial debut would be at the helm of a family-friendly movie about the first female quarterback to play Pop Warner football, I wouldn't have believed you. If you had told me then that Ice Cube would be one half of the inspirational story at the center of the film, I would have doubted you even more. But with both men now in their late 30s, with children of their own, and with some apparent need to tell stories of love and hope instead of violence and anger, that is exactly what Durst and Cube have done in this fall's The Longshots.

At its core, The Longshots is about an adolescent girl named Jasmine (Keke Palmer) who becomes the first and only female quarterback in Pop Warner football history. But as the plural title indicates, The Longshots is about much more than just the girl at its center. Before Jasmine joins the Minden Browns, the struggling team of boys who only won two games in their last season are definitely longshots. A middle-aged man who has been out of work for nearly two years, and possibly out of laundry detergent for just as long, Jasmine's uncle, Curtis Plummer (Ice Cube), would hardly be my first pick to win whatever this week's big game might be. And struggling since the factory that provided employment for most of their population closed down several years ago, neither would the town of Minden itself.

The story pretty much unfolds as you would expect: Jasmine does not know how to play football at all. When Jasmine's mother (Tasha Smith) practically guilts her brother-in-law Curtis into spending time with Jasmine, a chance throw of a football reveals that Jasmine has an arm on her. With nothing better to do, Jasmine finally gives in to Curtis' pleas to teach her football. And before we know it, Jasmine is the backup quarterback for the local Pop Warner team, Curtis begins to care enough about life put on fresh clothes every morning, and the Minden Browns are actually winning games.

For almost every character in the movie, their story is one of coming to life. In many ways, the theme of The Longshots is the same as the message of preacher Reverend Pratt's (Garrett Morris) sermon that begins the movie. "If you concentrate on what you don't have," he tells his congregation. "You forget about what you do have." And throughout the movie, that lesson is at the center of almost every story that fills its plot.

For Jasmine, it is only by letting go of the fact that she is not a boy, she is not the most popular girl at school, and she is not a model, that she is able to see that she is a talented football player. For Curtis, it is only through letting go of the idea that he is not a football star, not good with kids, and not good at much of anything, that he is able to see that he is a great coach and, to the surprise of many, the exact father figure that Jasmine needs. And for the town of Minden, it is only through taking pride in the place they call home that they finally seem to get past the downward pull of what they have lost and take hold of the upward pull of what they have.

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