Much better than I expected

Rating: 8/10 (16 November 2012)

Forty-something overweight slacker teacher Scott (Kevin James) is upset to learn that, because of budget cuts, the music programme at his school is to close and music teacher Marty (Henry Winkler) will lose his job just as his wife has become pregnant at 48. So, after a couple of false starts, Scott buckles down to generate the $48,000 necessary to keep the music department going - by cage fighting, where you get paid even if you lose.
From the films I have seen Kevin James in, I don't rate him - I have always found him a functional actor: he wears the costume and says the lines, but brings nothing else of any significance to his roles. So I was not expecting anything very much from this movie, especially given the ridiculous plot.
And yet I really enjoyed it. Kevin James brings a niceness to Scott - for all the lack of motivation in his work at the start of the film, the determination he shows to help Marty keep his job carries through into his work, and he both finds himself and also connects with his students (not to mention with fellow teacher Salma Hayek, who rejects his constant advances more or less throughout the film). After a dodgy start, there are a couple of laugh out loud moments (not particularly tasteful, admittedly) and a lot of smiling nearly all the way through. Winkler and Hayek have great fun, there is excellent support from Gregg Germann, Charice, and Bas Rutten, and James does a good job of holding the whole thing together.
If you fancy a feelgood comedy based on Rocky crossed with The Blackboard Jungle, you could do worse than this.
Incidentally, I don't know whether the title means something in the USA, but it means nothing in England.