Critic Reviews

It’s all engineered to pay off in familiar ways, though the movie isn’t quite as predictable as you might think.

The delineation between good and evil maybe a bit too black-and-white throughout, but none of those aspects remove the potency of the lessons learned along the way.

With its old-fashioned look, quaint unsophistication and self-consciously big heart, this film is Hoosiers meets The Longest Yard, with an Oliver Twist.

Credit Wilson and Sheen . . . Nothing that happens in 12 Mighty Orphans is unexpected, but these two pros still react with infectious wonder as the messages they send to their students take root and then sprout.

The results may be sports-movie predictable in many ways, but the Mighty Mites’ impossible story is one deserving of resurrection from the dusty archives of Texas history.

Wholesome in the most “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” brand of mythical Americanism, 12 Mighty Orphans is engineered to rouse emotions with uncritical pride, never reaching the less immaculate corners of the historical period it employs as canvas.

Ultimately it’s very little about football. It’s about class. This is a theme worthy of a spotlight, too — but 12 Mighty Orphans isn’t the place for it, or it shouldn’t be.

If you’re looking for that kind of moral-rich message, delivered with equal amounts of sincerity and syrup, congratulations: You may have found the mythical source from which all other malarkey springs.

12 Mighty Orphans tells the true story of a Depression-era high school football team improbably formed at a Texas orphanage, but the screenplay may as well have been invented from whole cloth, given its relentlessly formulaic nature.

Luke Wilson and Martin Sheen are respectably earnest as the caretakers of these blandly noble underdogs, but this sepia-tinged portrait slavishly follows the playbook at every turn — which is ironic since it’s a film meant to honour a coach who won by being inventive.