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Jackie Moon is the owner coach and player of the Flint Michigan Tropics semi-professional basketball team. He is thrilled when he learns that four teams from the league are going to merge with the NBA, taking them to the big time. The only problem is that the Tropics are the worst team in the league, better known for fighting with other teams than winning matches. Their only hope is to bring in former professional player Monix in the hope that he can get them into the top four by the end of the season. Oh and they have to bring in the crowds too, so Jackie sets about organising some very strange promotions such as jumping over cheerleaders on roller skates and fighting a bear. Silly season has clearly begun…
Ah, the new Will Ferrell [insert sport here] movie. Much as I want to like the guy he's making it increasingly difficult with his showboating performances in formulaic comedies. Part of the problem is that director Kent Alterman is utterly beholden to his star. He allows him to go on forever, ad-libbing ad nauseum to the exclusion of all the other players and the story. It's not as if he's the only funny person in the cast. There are lots of "Saturday Night Live" alumni, Woody Harrelson cut his teeth on "Cheers" and Andre Benjamin's taste in clothes proves he has a sense of humour. But none are given the chance to shine because Alterman is so fixated on Ferrell. It's a shame because jokes are allowed to go on until after they've run out of steam, adversely affecting the pacing. The worst of these is a scene where Jackie spends ages trying to throw up. There are some promising bits, such as the opening
montage of press cuttings and photos that chronicle Jackie Moon's career that could come from any sports movie. The commentators and their strange and often inappropriate comments on the action and players are worth a few smiles. But there are sudden shifts of tone that undermine the comedy. The most glaring of these is Monix's romance with an ex-girlfriend that is played completely straight by all involved so jars with the rest of the film.
Considering this is a sporting parody, we don't get to see enough of the basketball. There's a single playing and training montage and the obligatory slow-motion entrance for the team at the start of their final match, but that's about as close as you get to a sports movie. Too much time is spent on Jackie's silly stunts that don't advance the story and aren't edited well enough to evince belly laughs. In fact the editing is slack throughout, making the ninety-minute running time drag.
The screenplay by "Road Trip" writer Scot Armstrong is a deeply unoriginal piece of writing. There's a distinct lack of character development. Jackie Moon feels like a Will Ferrell creation through and through in that he's a buffoonish man-child who doesn't know when to stop, but it's a part we've seen too many times before for it to raise more than a smirk. Monix is the usual sports movie has-been trying to make a final comeback and Clarence "Coffee" Black is the talented but arrogant young upstart. All the other players are more or less interchangeable and don't have a personality or decent gag between them. Attempts at humanising the story are abortive because they are underdeveloped. Monix's romance sits at odds with the rest of the film and the team's bid to top the league is all but forgotten thanks to the cult of Will Ferrell's personality. So it's a film that lacks heart and characters you can care about. The gag ratio isn't high enough to compare with something like "Dodgeball". The slapstick isn't harsh enough, there aren't enough sight gags and the gross-out humour (mainly from the Monix fan who's happy for his hero to sleep with his wife) is creepy rather than funny. The verbal humour is notable for its absence, with expletives a poor substitute for jokes. There isn't even any room for gags about the size of the hair or collars. And there are a couple of running gags that become less hilarious the more often you see them. One involves a stoned hippy trying to get money out of Jackie after winning a contest and the other involves an escaped bear.
In order to excel, Will Ferrell needs to be kept on a short leash. Give him too much rope and he will hang himself as he does here. Jackie Moon is yet another riff on his buffoonish, over-confident Ron Burgundy persona but this time in a huge bubble perm wig. His approach to comedy is scattershot, with his unchecked verbal diarrhoea creating more misses than hits. It's a one-note performance that lacks originality. There are only so many times you can see him pretending the lights are on and no-one's home and buy it.
The supporting cast never get a chance to excel. As Monix, Woody Harrelson is bogged down by the unnecessary romantic subplot. It leaves him playing it straight, so his performance jars with the larger-than-life shenanigans of Ferrell. It's a shame because we know Harrelson can do comedy and there's a sense of a missed opportunity here. I like Andre Benjamin because he's one of the few musicians-turned-actors that can actually act. But his turn as Clarence "Coffee" Black is a very bland, stereotypical take on the cocky young upstart role. It's not really his fault as he has hardly any screen-time and no gags to speak of. Will Arnett and Andrew Daly fare slightly better as commentating duo Lou Redwood and Dick Pepperfield. There are the makings of an inventive comedy pairing here, balancing Arnett's bitter and sarcastic comments on the players with Daly's irrepressible cheesy enthusiasm. They are the characters we could stand to see more of. But virtually everyone on the payroll is only there to react to Ferrell and his supposed comic genius. So he gets all the best lines and they have to try to cope with his ad-libbing.
The original music by Theodore Shapiro references the period setting of the film with plenty of funk-inspired arrangements that are heavy on the Hammond organ and slap bass. There are also a few electric organ and hi-hat motifs and some tense strings and brass for the climactic game. However, Shapiro's work gets lost amongst the other soundtrack choices that include disco favourites "Mr Big Stuff", "Dance to the Music", "Why Can't We Be Friends?" Barry White for a sex scene and a disco version of Holst's "Jupiter" in a "2001: A Space Odyssey" reference. They fit the era of the film, but I could really have done without Ferrell's funk-lite "Do Me Sexy" number, which is repeated too often. So all in all the soundtrack is passable.
Hopefully "Semi-Pro" will be the final Will Ferrell sports movie as it proves his man-child persona has run its course. The direction is limp, the performances hampered by the showboating star and the writing doesn't have a high enough gag ratio to compensate for the flimsy plot. It's a mediocre comedy that lacks belly laughs and is one for hardcore Will Ferrell fans only.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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Excellent review, brilliantly written as always. Elle x
oberob 01.04.2008 20:59
I suspected that films starring Will Ferrell and his like (Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughan, Ben Stiller etc etc) would start to get a bit generic for my liking. Good review, well done!
Apr 1st, 2008
very helpful by (100%):
