Dwayne Johnson isn’t a great actor.

But sometimes great acting isn’t what you need.

Ok, you’d always choose a great performance, if you could get one, but sometimes an actor’s natural inclinations–"shortcomings," some may call them–mesh splendidly with the demands of the character.

As a performer, Dwayne Johnson is a little wooden and overly earnest, a thick-necked jock who sounds natural bellowing hokey, overblown phrases like "What in the blue hell is that?"

What that means, however, is that Dwayne Johnson will suffice admirably cast as a football coach... to a group of high-school aged "youth at risk."

Also working in his favour is the fact that Johnson has played a little football himself–he was on the Calgary Stampeders’ practice roster for a year–before following in his pop’s footsteps and becoming a pro-wrestler. You may know him better as "The Rock."

As coach Sean Porter in Gridiron Gang, he comes across as surprisingly sincere. You get the sense that Johnson really believes the hard-nosed inspirational stuff he’s been given to say on Porter’s behalf. (Perhaps a career as a wrestler-actor teaches you not to take your craft and yourself too seriously; the challenge for crafty actor-actors is that Hollywood’s teaches you exactly the opposite.) So despite the fact that you’re put on sap alert by Gridiron Gang’s premise–juvenile detention supervisor uses football to break down gang barriers–eventually you give in and want him to succeed. His

And director Phil Joanou sets the table nicely, rubbing our noses in the brutal context for gang kids and reminding us that the youth punishment system serves mainly to warehouse them and, in many cases, merely to delay a violent death.

The star is charming, the context palpable... but the movie, unfortunately, is disappointing.

The primary impediment to Total Entertainment Satisfaction is that Joanou, or the people looking over his shoulder and reminding him that the movie is costing someone a lot of money, just doesn’t trust the audience. So here’s a reminder:

We will know when to be proud of the players, and we’ll know when to get snuffly. You don’t have to bathe your actors in golden light for us to know what an Important Thing they’re doing. Even without the gawdawful swells of music, we’ll understand that the two boys from rival gangs are having a meaningful reconciliation, especially since we’ve known from ten minutes in that it was coming. Those two youngsters give you some great performances. Trust them to do the job. And–please!–would someone have the guts to make a football movie that doesn’t leave everything hanging on the last play of the game?

The proof that a dose of realism works comes at the end of the movie. As an homage–and/or as evidence of unwitting hubris–the filmmakers’ adorn the credit roll with footage from the 1993 documentary that inspired this dramatized story. (It was also called Gridiron Gang.) We see the actual human beings upon which the characters in the movie are based. And darned if the actual human beings, despite having no golden auras, aren’t grittier and more moving than their overly processed doppelgangers.

Sometimes Art can organize things so as to give us a fresh perspective, improving, if you will, on Reality.

This time, Reality sacks Art well behind the line of scrimmage.