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Seeing this film presents an interesting movie critic dilemma for me. I don’t want to go into a film like Champions to say anything bad about it. I mean, it is what it is a sports movie meant to inspire and provide some laughs. Its heart is in the right place. What it does very well is what I wish the movie were more about, the characters with intellectual and physical disabilities. It’s a frustrating film to review because of that. Real people play the characters with disabilities. No actors are pretending, and everyone they get is fantastic casting. The Farrelly Brothers have long been a champion of characters with disabilities, even in their raunchier days.
Alas, raunchier days. The solo debut of Bobby Farrelly feels a bit stuck in the past in terms of story and structure yet neutered in terms of comedy. Kingpin, this is not. Woody Harrelson is likable enough as a person, but I must admit I didn’t find his character in this to be that compelling. The story revolves around Harrelson’s Marcus, an assistant coach on a minor league basketball team in Des Moines, Iowa. Marcus was once a head basketball coach and presented as a skilled and dedicated coach with a bad temper. His temper gets the best of him during a game where he thinks he has better ideas than the head coach Phil played by Ernie Hudson. This leads him to shove the head coach and lose his job. Driving home drunk from the bar after he hits a police car, and is sentenced to 90 days of community service coaching the local community center’s intellectually challenged basketball team, The Friends.
Marcus realizes that coaching this team won’t be as easy as he thinks, and we’re introduced to the various quirks of the characters that make up The Friends. Johnny (Kevin Iannucci) is the brother of Kaitlin Olson’s Alex, who we are introduced to in the first scene of the film as someone who sleeps with Marcus, but it’s established she is an independent who does her own thing. Speaking of Kaitlin Olson, for fans of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (the funniest sitcom ever), you’ll notice her character has something in common with Dee from the show. She is a struggling actress who runs a Shakespeare traveling acting company. One of the many recurring gags in Sunny is Dee’s failed attempts at becoming an actress. I like Kaitlin Olson, and screenwriters Mark Rizzo and Bobby Farrelly try to give her more of a well-rounded role than the usual love interest role, but it’s not enough.
Anyway, Johnny is conveniently the little brother of Alex, so our hero always has someone he can sleep with. Johnny never showers, which I know is not meant to make fun of Johnny, but it still comes across that way. This is rather typical of most mainstream movies. As I said, though, the best performances are by the cast with disabilities. My favorite was Marlon, played by Casey Metcalfe, who has autism and knows a lot of facts and figures. I, too, am like that, and there’s excellent comedic mileage with him inappropriately taking the time to give us useless facts. Ultimately, these actors with disabilities feel short-changed by the dull, tame story of our actors.
So a mixed review overall for Champions for me. I had smiles at best and maybe a few chuckles, but comedically the film is tame as shit. Its heart is in the right place, but there’s zero comedic momentum and few laughs. I’m unsure if it’s a sign of the times or maybe the Farrelly brothers have tamed out, but this is no Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary, Stuck on You, or The Ringer. All those films dealt with the same positive messages as Champions in a more comedically risky way that worked. This feels like a movie that would have come out in the 90s, just watered down.
Cheech Marin & Woody Harrelson
Champions is pleasant enough but non-essential. What’s also bothersome is that our main character Marcus doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson until the very end, which throws a minor surprise in, but again, nothing we haven’t seen before. That pretty much describes the whole movie. There’s no journey of self-discovery for Marcus. He always has someone there to bail him out, even though he doesn’t deserve it. And that, my friends, is why they call it the movies. Champions are acceptable on a rainy day streaming if you’re in the mood for something non-demanding.
** 1/2 out of ****
