Movies |

Snoop Dogg swears by ‘Underdoggs’ message

Even a feel-good kids comedy like Friday’s Prime Video release “The Underdoggs” now arrives with a certain amount of inevitable cultural baggage.

That’s partly because this upbeat redemption saga is a raucous R-rated family film due to the continual, frequent and inescapable use of the F word.

“Didn’t we all want to cuss as kids?” Snoop Dogg, 52, asks rhetorically.

“Part of the movie was to feel grounded in the culture,” added director Charles Stone III in a virtual press conference. “I was amazed, these kids just let it loose. They could beat Snoop down on the verbals.

“But as a director that’s what was so important: To have an environment where that can happen. Because that needed to be real.”

Added costar Tika Sumpter, “I have a friend, a writer who is not part of the culture or anything. He said, ‘So this is “Bad News Bears.”’ Exactly! Only with more curse words.”

“Underdoggs” stars Snoop as JJ, a narcissistic, once-legendary football pro forced to do community service coaching a failing Pee Wee football team in his Long Beach, California, hometown.

Naturally, the Underdoggs team and JJ learn positive life lessons. The film is inspired by Snoop’s very real philanthropic effort, the Snoop Youth Football League founded in 2005 to provide youth, regardless of race, color, creed or economic background, the chance to learn values through football and teamwork. Over 85,000 kids have participated with over 20,000 going on to play in college and 25 being drafted into the pros.

“This is basically a coming of age tale about a middle-aged Black dude and that’s universal,” Stone said. “But it’s also celebrating a culture that is with people of color, which is African American and Latinx as well.”

“When they start saying ‘It’s a Black movie,’ that’s just trying to limit it,” said Snoop, also a producer. “Trying to put it to a certain fan base. You understand what I’m saying?

“When they do things like that they discredit the fact it’s a great picture, with great actors and great people, no matter what walks of life they come from.

“Everybody in the movie is not Black. Everybody who worked on the movie isn’t Black. The people who are the leads and certain parts are Black but that doesn’t discredit anybody and everybody.

“I think it should be looked at as just a great piece of work like any other project that’s not Black.”

“The Underdoggs” streams on Prime Video Jan. 26