This article discusses the ending of the Netflix film Home Team and will contain spoilers.
Ready Steady Cut film critic M.N. Miller calls Home Team “The Waterboy without the charm or Henry Winkler.”
Home Team ends with their adorable kicker, who has the singing voice of an angel, missing a game tieing field goal that goes wide right. It was in the North Central Texas Championship game. A league for 12-year olds. The spin here is they have a new offensive coordinator, Super Bowl-winning head coach Sean Payton (played by Kevin James). Yes, that Sean Payton. The man who was suspended for putting a bounty on grown men’s heads, so his players had extra motivation to injure opponents. They let him coach pre-teens.
Do these children sulk? No. They didn’t have time to. That’s because the ball went wide right and performed a Roy Hobbs. The ball strikes the scoreboard and sends fireworks shooting into the sky because of the electric fire that the accident has seemed to cause. During Home Team‘s final scene, Payton walks into his office, ready to resume his duties after being suspended for a year. The maintenance technician welcomes him back. He even adds, “We sucked without you.” That actor is played by the real-life, and now suddenly retired, New Orleans Saints Head Coach, Sean Payton.
The coach moves the Super Bowl trophy (sitting on a corner table) over as the worker leaves. He places his North Central Texas Runner-up trophy right next to it.
Netflix film Home Team ending explained
So, the good people of Ready Steady Cut want me to explain the ending of Home Team. Besides pointing out it is an Adam Sandler production, which makes it The Waterboy without the charm (or Henry Winkler), there isn’t much of a point to it. Yes, the primary theme is Payton discovering the joy of football again and reconnecting with his family. That is intentional. What is unintentional is revealing what a poor father he is.
Yes, we know that. He hasn’t been there for his son because he is busy working hard. We have seen that in any father/son genre picture. It’s the fact that, when they are having lunch before he heads back to Louisana, he finally invites his son up to a game to watch. The film says he has never invited his son to watch him coach a game. But he never has had his son visit him in the Bayou either.
This is a comedy and a very loose adaption of the Payton story. Everything is embellished to give the characters some kind of arc. So, none of it can or should be taken seriously. The primary theme is reconnecting with his son and family, which was the point of this story.
Intentional or not. At least he didn’t put a bounty on the opposing children’s heads.
What did you think of the ending of the Netflix film Home Team? Comment below!
