Semi-Pro

By Matthew Rodgers

Will Ferrell steps back into that most familiar of territory, the sporting arena for his latest stab at a brand of comedy that without a name can only be described as his own. Love it or hate it, as many do, there is no denying that Ricky Bobby (Nascar racing redneck from Talladega Nights) and Chas Michael Michaels (overweight male pairs skater from Blades of Glory) are cut and paste comedy creations that allow Ferrell to fill them out with improvised ramblings and an above-average belly laugh strike ratio. You can now add to that list 70’s icon, chart-topper, franchise owner and perm haired basketball player, Jackie Moon.

Semi-Pro at times feels like Ferrell’s previous outings with merely a wardrobe change and a different ball-game so plot becomes something of a steel ring off which to loosely hang the comedy netting. The Flint Tropics are a ramshackle outfit made up of one star player, Clarence (Andre Benjamin – Four Brothers), an over the hill NBA hall-of-famer Monix (Woody Harrelson – White Men Can’t Jump), and any number of sporting comedy cliché bit-part players you can think of; mute, geek, turncoat etc. When they face liquidation and abolition from the league it’s up to Jackie and his unique promotional skills – bear wrestling, $10,000 free-throw attempt, death defying and cheerleader crushing leaps – to keep the club alive.

Unsurprisingly Semi-Pro’s Most Valuable Player is Ferrell, whether he is belting out his sleazy chart-topper Love Me Sexy to a half empty arena, wrestling the aforementioned grizzly – “If you have a small child use it as a shield” – or during a cringe worthy game of unintentional Russian roulette, he is the unrivalled King of the genre, even if there is nothing to distinguish Jackie Moon from his back catalogue of former creations.

That’s not to say that the rest of the cast aren’t given the opportunity to step up to the free-throw line. Will Arnett (wasted in Blades of Glory) is on scene stealing form as drunken commentator Lou Redwood alongside little known US comedian Andrew Daly as his co-anchor Dick Peppercorn, their obvious ad-libs are slam-dunks every-time they are sparingly used.

Woody Harrelson’s Monix is perhaps the only character requiring a time-out, why director Kent Alterman feels the need to suffocate his obvious talents, this is Woody from Cheers remember, in order to shoe-horn in a ridiculous story of redemption and love without charm or laughs is a major mistake. In a film such as Semi-Pro very little direction is needed, the comedians work off-the-cuff and it’s assembled in the editing suite so how it manages to stifle this genuine talent is a crime.

Deserving of the bronze medal podium in Ferrell’s trilogy of sports movies, Semi-Pro does exactly what you would expect and and rather than being a 5 star movie, it’s simply a three pointer.