Necessary Roughness

The premise might sound gimmicky, but it's realized honestly and specifically. [27 Sept 1991, p.D6]

An amiable comedy about a patched-together football squad, tries to do just that, comes up short after half time, but hangs on well enough to beat the spread.

Necessary Roughness, a football comedy of unnecessary blandness, has the same problem as the Miami Dolphins: It dies in the second half. [3 Oct 1991, p.F4]

Essentially, the film's strategy is to fight predictability with bonehead amiability, and on this level it's a crowd-pleaser. [27 Dec 1991, p.28]

Essentially, this is a football version of the equally contrived and only slightly less hokey baseball comedy Major League.

I wish that movies, like scholastic football, could be judged on a "no pass, no play" basis.

The whole movie, in fact, is one big blooper.