Several overlapping formulas here:
Movies about girls playing boys sports aren’t very interesting in themselves anymore, and even real-life stories about girls playing on boys’ teams are common. This formula only really worked by itself when the audience could imagine that the battle for serious recognition of female athletes was still being fought. That’s not to say that it can’t still work, but something new would have to be brought to it. Ironically, the villainous kids’ taunt to “get a little dirt in your skirt” echoes a self-empowering zinger often shouted by the female baseball players in A League Of Their Own.
Speaking of A League Of Their Own, it featured a down-and-out coach with a drinking problem (Tom 
Hanks). So did Hoosiers (Dennis Hopper, assistant coach), and so did The Bad News Bears (Walter Matthau in the original). These are all what we might call “fallen mentors.” They take a path parallel to, but different from, the misfits they guide. The misfits want validation, the mentors want redemption.
That the title, The Longshots, is so reminiscent of the very recent The Comebacks, which is a parody of exactly this kind of film, is revealing in terms of just how not-self-aware this production is.
It’s not an accident that all the jeers in the trailer are made by white kids, and aimed at black kids. That’s a lame effort to get you angry enough at the white kids to pay for your ticket. Is it going to work?
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