'The Blind Side' — A football movie too sweet to score

Writer-director John Lee Hancock, who scored a sentimental hit with 2002's fact-based baseball movie "The Rookie," is back with another, less-engaging true sports story.

This one's about a football prodigy, Michael Oher (played by the well-cast Quinton Aaron), a homeless African-American teenager who was taken in by the Tuohys, a wealthy, white Memphis family. They became his legal guardians.

Sandra Bullock is a natural in the tricky role of irrepressibly bossy Leigh Anne Tuohy, who easily convinces her amused husband (Tim McGraw) and kids (Lily Collins, scenery-chewing Jae Head) to provide the boy with a place to stay.

Kathy Bates is the eccentric tutor they hire to raise Oher's grade-point average. She's identified as "a Democrat," a term that is used to suggest how desperate the conservative Tuohys have become.

Except for a few crude exchanges,"The Blind Side" is almost as squeaky-clean as an old Disney movie. Unfortunately, it can also be just as cute and condescending.

Based on Michael Lewis' book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," Hancock's script does use humor to keep things in perspective. And there's a genuine moral dilemma posed near the end, when Oher, essentially a nonentity in the rest of the film, is forced to question the family's motives.

Bullock turns on the charm to make Leigh Anne's pushiness palatable — this may be the best work she's done since "Crash" — but the movie itself fails to pull off the same trick.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com