Afterthoughts on Netflix's Home Team

 

Netflix's recent Happy Madison offering, Home Team, is yet another perfect team sports movie in my books. I say perfect because I'd never really dig those happy-sure-win sports movies. Sure, once or twice is ok but all the time? Everyone should note that Hollywood doesn't need to 'Mighty Duck' every sports movie endings ever. Sometimes we win and most of the time we lose. So what better way to illustrate the way we accept these defeats than to discover the silver linings from the unpleasant endings that befell us.

Kevin James' character, Sean Payton, is apparently a real live person who had in fact went through the same ordeal we've seen in the movie. Further readings told me that certain events in the movie were exaggerated but they say that it's probably 70-80% there. Home Team's ben endorsed by the real Sean Payton himself, who had a small cameo as the New Orleans Saints' office janitor who delivered a very sarcastic remark about the mishaps that he'd been through to his on-screen version of himself.

Ultimately, Home Team taught us that losing is a-okay as long as you learnt something along the way i.e. the value of teamwork, good father-son bonding and fair play. There's a Benchwarmers (yet another Happy Madison movie) vibe in Home Team because they let everyone play in the final game, even the benchwarmers. In fact, if you ask me, Home Team also took some inspiration from the 1976 movie, The Bad News Bears. I remember that Walter Matthau movie defying all other stereotype happy-ending sports movies when it teaches us that it's okay to lose. You just need to stand up again after you fall.