Average movie about average joes

Rating: Null/10 (4 November 2004)

You don't have very high expectations when a film is called 'Dodgeball: A true underdog story' and it stars Ben Stiller. That is a good thing for this film.
Imaginatively enough titled 'Average Joe's' is a gym where the losers and underdogs hang out, apparently not working out though. It is shoddily run and trouble is brewing. Unless they can rustle up $ 50,000 in quick time 'Average Joe's' will lose their gym to the sleek corporate style efficiency of 'globo gym' (Motto: We are better than you and we know it).
But AJ regulars-a weanie, a kook who thinks that he is a pirate, a bespectacled middle aged loser and a dumb brick- love the place enough to do anything to prevent this from happening. Their only hope however, is to win the a dodgeball championship in Vegas which coincidentally offers the exact amount required as a prize to the winning team. They manage to coax the good-hearted hero and owner Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn) into being a part of the wild scheme. A crazy coach, Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn) with innovative methods like bunging wrenches at the team, the mandatory female-potential-love-interest for-hero and an adrenalin charged tournament in showy Vegas complete the picture.
The spoofs on American fondness for obscure are funny enough. But, you can see it all coming. Like when weanie boy gets new uniforms for the team, you know that something other than the ordered uniforms is going to come out of that box. You can be equally sure that some act of providence will let the team win the mandatory 'regional qualifiers' on some technicality. In reality they have lost out to a team of girl scouts.
Ben Stiller is White Goodman the smarmy fitness freak that runs Globo and is out to get the underdog. His character gives him ample potential to create some gross humour that either makes people laugh or wince. To the audience that belongs to the former category this film will work well enough. In any case, we did not start off with great expectations and we won't be too disappointed by this time pass flick.