Fired Up MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: -1 Content: -4

Nicholas D’Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, Sarah Roemer. Teen comedy. Written by Freedom Jones (who must have seen Porky’s a hundred times). Directed by Will Gluck.

FILM SYNOSPSIS: Shawn Colfax and Nick Brady, the stars of the Gerald R. Ford High School football team (and womanizers of the first order) are dreading the prospect of another summer at football camp. When Nick hatches a scheme for the two to join their school's cheerleaders at cheer camp instead, they find themselves awash in a sea of gorgeous young women. It’s a smorgasbord for two young men who think of little else than ways to score. But when Shawn falls for Carly, the beautiful head cheerleader who sees right through them, he begins to find a conscious.

PREVIEW REVIEW: The poster consists mainly of the title, with the initials F U in giant capitals. This sends the signal that we’re in for a bawdy, irreverent, Porky’s-type sex farce. And sure enough, the poster’s not-so-subliminal warning lived down to my expectations. It’s stereotyping is an insult to the young women of the sport of cheerleading, as well as to all sports. It’s humor, though the two male leads have timing, is base, injurious, and overly familiar.

So, I’m sitting there with a colleague, waiting for the film to start when in walks an aisle-full of high school cheerleaders, all weighing no more than 90 pounds, each disproportionately displaying the majority of the weight in the chest area. Now, I’m a Christian and I’m well aware that I’m supposed to honor these much younger ladies. But, I ain’t no monk. (I just live like one.) So, the portion of me that doesn’t want to sully my witness tries to look elsewhere. The mortal, earthy, weak man, on the other hand, senses his eyes pulling back to this bevy of baby beauties bouncing up the balcony steps. Well, I figure, if you got to have a sin, this beats sloth. (Just kidding.)

Each girl was wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt with the film’s two initials adorning their fronts. These shirts were obviously given to the cheer team by the studio publicists. Now there’s a message for you – “We’ll give you free tickets to this movie if you’ll wear our snug fitting obscenity implying t-shirts.” Or something like that. Suddenly, I was embarrassed for me, the girls and the rest of the filmgoers. A gaggle of bosomy underage girls with F U pushing forth into the world seemed in questionable taste. Did their dad’s see those shirts? Did their coach? And why were those girls there in the first place. Okay, it’s only rated PG-13 (by a fraction), but the content and the story are exploitive and coarse. This wasn’t a movie about the athletic qualities of cheerleading. It was a sexploitation comedy. Didn’t their parents know this would be a film filled with sexual outrageousness and uncouth situations? Didn’t the F U on the poster tell them that? It was a crude comedy that exploited the female form whenever possible and sent the message that every high school guy wanted nothing more in life than to binge on sex. If their parents knew it, would they have let their girls attend?

I don’t have a teenage daughter. If I did, I wouldn’t let her go to this movie (read the content). And I sure as heck wouldn’t let her wear that t-shirt…Sometimes I think the right guys aren’t fathers.

Preview Reviewer: Phil Boatwright
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics