The uplifting story of detention camp probation officer Sean Porter, who creates a high-school-level football team from a ragtag group of dangerous teenage inmates as a means to teach them self-respect and social responsibility. He is joined in this experiment by co-worker, Malcolm Moore. But Porter must first overcome almost universal resistance from the powers that be - his skeptical bosses and coaches at rival high schools who don't want their players mixing it up with convicted criminals on the football field.

This is one of those films where by the end of it all, you'll get that warm, glowy feeling inside for witnessing yet another act in the salvation of mankind.

So, okay, it's formulaic and cliched and you can predict the triumphant ending right from the beginning but I'm not complaining. After all, it's rare to see real-life miracles happening in life and this is a true story based on the 1993 documentary of the same title - "Gridiron Gang", produced by the same producer Lee Stanley. The documentary tracks the efforts of two real-life coaches Sean Porter and Malcolm Moore, who by thinking up a way to beat the juvenile detention system, formed a team of inmates to compete against the area's high schools in 1990. You will notice that from the brief excerpts of the documentary, shown at the end of the film, even the script is taken from there as it shows Porter and the player's counterparts (several former players were extras in the movie) saying the same things in the movie.

"Gridiron Gang" opens with the sobering statistic that 120,000 minors are locked up in America at any given time for crimes committed through gang fights and armed robbery. America is a rough place and many kids kill and get killed unwittingly because of gangsterism and the country's liberal gun laws. 75% of the incarcerated typically return to lockup after being released or die in the streets.

Pro wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson - a college football player himself back in his younger days, stars as Porter, the detention-camp probation officer who rebels against the authorities, and whups a bunch of young thugs into a dynamic force on the football field. Along with his sidekick Malcolm Moore (Xzibit), he sets up the Camp Kilpatrick Mustangs from his charge of "losers" but through Porter's vision, initiative, inspiring words and gruelling drills on the field, they discover the self esteem they never had and become winners.

The film sets up the emotional play of the plot but planting each member of the team with his own sob story or issue. One is a perennial troublemaker who simply likes to start fights, two are gang members of the neighbourhood's opposing gangs and are therefore bitter enemies who want to kill each other without really knowing why, another is an angry introvert, yet another feels unwanted because he fears his mother does not love him but most are just lost and looking for direction. Porter himself has a dying mother and has some issues of his own with his absent father.

The football team is thus the solution and the healer of everybody's individual problems, and indeed that turns out to be the case. The kids learn discipline and teamwork, the stepping stones to a brighter future, and by the end of the film, some do step on those stones and go back into society as good citizens. This, in short, is the crux of the whole story.

Director Joanou did a good job of setting up the characters and building the story up to its satisfying end. Those who like football will not be disappointed either as there are many rousing rushes of actual football being played. Johnson was charismatic but tough, yet showed a side soft enough to let a few tears roll. The small let down was rapper Xzibit's character who was a little underdeveloped. But of the young stars, Jade Yorker as Willie Weathers shone out as the juvenile who shot his stepfather for beating up his mother but under Porter's guidance, grew up, mastered control and anger and became a star quarterback.

"Gridiron Gang" comes to a satisfying end and you leave the cinema with a sigh knowing that no matter how hopeless things can start off, they can work out in the end. A great inspirational story all in all.