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Little Angels (2025)

‘Little Angels’ (2025) is a redemption story for rich male coaches

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by

MJ-A
in

Dean Cain’s Little Angels entertains without making any big waves. It’s heart-warming family fare, covers all the usual soccer movie bases, and it includes Brandi Chastain. And uh, Lou Ferrigno. But the story is not about the girls, it’s really about the high paid college football coach.

It feels like this was Dean Cain’s shot to revitalize his career — he writes, directs, produces, and stars in this little family film. While the title is Little Angels, the movie centers around his character of Coach Jake Rogers.

The Story

In the story, Coach Jake (Dean Cain) is a $5M a year college football coach who has made Tatum University a regular contender for a national championship. But he is put on probation for making disparaging slightly-sexist remarks after his female kicker misses a field goal in a playoff game. Jake’s new Athletic Director Charli Martin (Helena Mattson), who is female, suspends him without pay. To be reinstated, Jake must do 50 hours of community service and take a sensitivity training course.

For his community service, Jake must coach a new girls soccer team in the Tatum community league. Brit Richard Dragon (Torrance Coombs) is the league administrator and is also the coach of the 5-years-running league champions, eponymously named The Dragons. He’s the cardboard cutout villain of the film and actually a pretty perfect caricature of a scheming league administrator. You know the kind — controls the referee assignments, makes the rules, but doesn’t tell you about the rules until after the fact.

However, bad boy Dick is just a small obstacle in Jake’s life, because the biggest problem Coach Jake has to deal with is himself and his philosophy that winning is everything. He bets AD Charli his job against hers if his girls team wins the championship. But he knows nothing about soccer and tries to win by teaching the girls to dive, with humorous side effects.

It turns out that AD Charli’s adopted Asian daughter Tevy (Alex Jayne Go) plays on Jake’s team. Jake and Charli’s friendship grows, but at the same time, against the rules of his suspension, Jake continues to secretly coach the Tatum football team through his assistant Double D Darren Davis. 

Jake is a resourceful guy – he gets Brandi Chastain to train the girls. At his favorite restaurant, he recruits the owner’s twin girls, who are ringers, to his team. To convince owner Maria to let her daughters join the team, he works in the restaurant and tutors the girls in their schoolwork. This commitment helps Jake evolve to think of others and not just himself.

Jake grows to care for and inspire the team and no longer sees the Little Angels as his punishment. As he leads them through the season and up the standings, he becomes an amalgam of the best movie coaches ever, spouting lots of coaching aphorisms.

Of course, the Angels meet the Dragons in the Championship final. But the game is at the same time as Tatum’s national football championship game, and the board has reinstated Jake as coach. His girls team has become family, and he has to decide to which team he really belongs.

The Soccer

The soccer in the film is believable, and scenes with Brandi Chastain are sprinkled throughout the movie as she tosses pearls of soccer wisdom to the players and the audience.

In Conclusion

Writer/Director/Producer/Star Dean Cain put a lot of effort into this film. For someone who just turned 60, he looks very good; in interviews he constantly reminds people he was Superman. He got the film funded by the Angel Guild as faith-based programming. It looks like this might be his feature film debut as a director.

Most of the conflicts I have about this film are off the pitch, so to speak. First of all, Dean Cain is a Trumpie who wanted to be an honorary ICE agent, and his hero is Elon Musk. This is even though he is half-Japanese and his immigrant birth father was interred in a relocation camp during World War 2.

Secondly, there is a scene in the film where he tells Tevy to go do something, and she asks him somewhat defiantly, “Did you tell me to do that because I’m Asian?”. To me, the natural answer would have been, “Hey, I’m Asian too.” But instead, he just shakes his head in exasperation and tells Tevy to go run. Denial of one’s identity is a big negative to me.

Lastly, I was sad in the end that the female AD’s job was secondary to Coach Jake’s. Even though AD Charli Martin has a PhD, a masters in women’s studies, is a lawyer, and was a 4-year cross country athlete. But of course, Little Angels is not about the girl athletes, it’s about the male coach who succeeds because of all the females who surround and support him. It’s a perfect ending for MAGAtland. The movie should have been called Coach Jake, but there already is such a film.

So would I show this film to a bunch of young female athletes? No way, buddy.

6 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 6

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