Semi-Pro

I think I laughed about ten times. Don’t ask me how many times I cringed. And the cringing wasn’t even for grossness (well, sometimes), it was for the sheer patheticness of the film. I kept wondering who greenlit Semi-Pro in the first place? Is it because it’s Will Ferrell in a sports comedy? Okay, it worked in Talladega Nights and maybe Blades of Glory, but have you seen Kicking & Screaming? Is it too much to ask for fresh material?

So Semi-Pro using the seventies as its backdrop for a struggling basketball franchise that longs to break into the NBA. That means we get loads of afros and loud clothing patterns. Am I supposed to find that funny? Maybe I’ll give it a mild chuckle, but only once. Will Ferrell plays singer/owner/coach/player Jackie Moon as a man about town with an overconfidence that usually gets him in trouble. Hmmm. Sounds a lot like his previous roles in Talladega and Blades. And that cockiness just screams Ron Burgundy; which already nailed the 70s machismo. Now that was funny. Will Ferrell shouldn’t be rerunning his old stuff already. Don’t get me wrong, I like Will Ferrell and I think he is a very funny man but he has made some poor decisions in his movie roles lately. Maybe I just like him better in small spurts, check out his work on funnyordie.com and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

And what’s up with Woody Harrelson? Why is he in this movie? He plays Monix, a tough-guy ‘pro’ who tries to turn the team around. He’s not tough. I’ll always remember him as the sweet lunkhead Woody Boyd from Cheers. That was his masterpiece. Okay, he was good in Natural Born Killers and he did a fine small role in No Country for Old Men, but did you see the atrocity that is Kingpin? There goes my gag reflex. Didn’t like him in White Men Can’t Jump, Money Train, The Cowboy Way, Indecent Proposal, Doc Hollywood, Will & Grace, shall I go on? I don’t think Harrelson plays the jerk all that well. It’s sad. So very sad.

Like Pepper and Cotton’s commentary in Dodgeball, I did enjoy the banter of Will Arnett and Andrew Daly as the Tropics colourmen. They played well off each other and added some much needed laughs into this ‘comedy.’ I also thought Andre Benjamin (of Outkast fame) did an okay job as Black Coffee, the only player who knows how to dunk a ball. Most of the rest of the cast were useless. Rob Corddry was a waste of screentime. I have no idea what Andy Richter’s position on the team was. Jackie Earle Haley as Dukes the stoner was funny but the joke got old pretty fast.

The biggest confusion when it came to casting was Maura Tierney as Lynn, the love interest for Monix. Why was there even a love story? It didn’t work at all! It seemed tacked on so that they could have a female in the cast. Monix is still in love with Lynn who is married to an oblivious Monix-fan loser played by Corddry. I wanted to cry when these scenes were getting played out. But that’s not the only part of the story that sucked. The basketball playing is pathetic and cliché. I got more enjoyment from The Mighty Ducks. The only thing that seems to work in this film is the outrageous promotional ideas submitted by Jackie Moon. Bear wrestling was funny. Sabotaging his own teammates so he doesn’t have to buy the sold-out crowd corndogs was funny. But that’s about it.

This movie would have been better served as a series of short skits on SNL not as a slapped together ninety-minute movie. You’ll probably laugh at some of the ideas and one-liners but not much else. Avoid the theatre. Even avoid the DVD. I would wait until they play this on TBS. You know you can watch it while you’re working on something else. Yep, it’s just that bad.