1.   A central reason cited for the cutback was the abject failure of highly touted sports movies.

2.   The temptation to create a compelling, entertaining sports movie must be too strong to resist.

3.   Appropriately enough, no movie plays by the rules quite like a sports movie.

4.   Besides, it has one of the best finishes of any sports movie in years.

5.   But perhaps it will save us from future insulting sports movies.

6.   Doggedly mimicking our own sports movies, it shows lovable underdogs beset by outside pressures and internal bickering.

7.   Even sports movies have been guilty.

8.   Few Hollywood formulas are applied more rigidly than that of the kiddie sports movie.

9.   Its manipulations are bald, yet unintrusive, unlike those in a long tradition of hectoring sports movies, placing it in a league of its own.