...pretty much mines the bottom of the barrel for laughs, going with improvisation and cheap shots.
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One shot too many.
After coming up aces in two previous sports parodies, "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (2006) and "Blades of Glory" (2007), Will Ferrell gave it one more try in "Semi-Pro" (2008). The third time was not the charm. Each succeeding film made less than its predecessor, with "Semi-Pro" barely making a quarter of what "Talladega Nights" earned. I believe I read somewhere that Ferrell has said he's forgoing any more such pictures for a while. Good thing, too. This one is pretty lame.
The idea was to make a comedy about the old American Basketball Association, the real-life league that played from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s before being absorbed into the more-prominent National Basketball Association. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a former one-hit-wonder recording artist who is now the owner, player, and coach of a fictional ABA team, the Flint (Michigan) Tropics. In their effort to survive, ABA teams would sometimes resort to activities beyond basketball, and for its humor the movie capitalizes on these often elaborate gimmicks and halftime shows. I rather suspect, however, that even though the ABA faded out of existence, it succeeded better than this movie, which dies a deserved demise before it's half started.
The problem from the outset is one that plagues too many movies these days, especially comedies: It's got a thin premise and no real story or characters. "Semi-Pro" gives one the feeling that the filmmakers made it up as they went along, starting with a ten-minute "Saturday Night Live" skit that everybody tried stretching to over an hour and a half by ad libbing and improvising. The two-disc set reviewed here includes both the original, R-rated theatrical version at about ninety-two minutes and a new, unrated "Let's Get Sweaty" version that's a few minutes longer, the major difference being the addition of more dirty words. Is this any way to make a movie?
Anyway, the Tropics are on the verge of bankruptcy. They've tried everything to attract an audience--from a "Free Gerbil Night" to a "Dime Beer Night"--and nothing has worked. Attendance is at an all-time low. It never occurs to Jackie that maybe they have no fans because they never win a game. Instead of coaching his team to win, Jackie comes up with ever stupider half-time shows, like his wrestling a bear or skate-jumping over twenty girls. When a goofball hippie (Jackie Earle Haley) wins ten grand in one of Jackie's cockamamie stunts--an impossible free-throw contest--ten grand Jackie doesn't have, it's the last straw. Jackie's got to do something.
Then comes the NBA possibly to his rescue. They have agreed to absorb the four best ABA teams into their league if the rest of the ABA will just go away. So all Jackie has to do is actually win a few games, move up into the top four, and join the NBA. Oh, and attract a few fans as well. The NBA insists that the top four teams it takes on also be popular teams. So Jackie's got two problems because the Tropics are the worst of the worst all the way around. That's the setup, and the rest of the film is just a matter of our hanging around waiting for Jackie to come up with something new.
In its favor, "Semi-Pro" does a nice job recreating the look and feel of the 1970s, the lifestyles, the clothing, and the hairdos. Be aware, however, that movies like "Austin Powers" already exploited these possibilities (albeit for a decade earlier, but close enough), and "Semi-Pro" doesn't do much more with them. Merely looking at Will Ferrell's curly-long 'do and equally hairy armpits is not enough.
OK, there is one cute bit involving eyeliner, but, unfortunately, it's followed by a slapstick brawl that quickly lowers the level.
I suppose the filmmakers figured that Ferrell and a few others could carry the show, but they figured wrong, mainly because the supporting players are caricature we've seen too many times before. Woody Harrelson plays a washed-up NBA cast-off, Ed Monix, who gets virtually nothing amusing to do. His character is so serious, he's like a sour grape in the proceedings and only adds a needless note of solemnity to the show. What's more, Monix is still pining after an old flame (Maura Tierney), and neither Harrelson's nor Tierney's character has anything even remotely to do with the main story line. They're totally extraneous, and the filmmakers could have (maybe should have) cut them entirely without any effect on the story line.
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[release]23430[/release]