Watchable but just not among the best recent sport comedies.

Rating: 5/10 (16 August 2008)

Sport comedies recently really have become popular again, with movies such as "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story", "Blades of Glory", "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and "Balls of Fury". Some of them are great while others are just pretty lame. I'm afraid this movie is one of the latter ones.
It's so easy to make fun of the '70's in comedies. This movie uses basically all of the clichés existing regarding the '70's. The movie comically only mainly purely relies on the fact that it is being set on the '70's. It relies a bit too much on it, since it alone just not enough to make a good and funny comedy with. It's also getting a bit old, comedies that are making fun of the '70's. Writer Scot Armstrong also already did it before for the movie "Starsky & Hutch", which worked out still much better. Yes, of course it has some moments but it's one of those movies that has more misses than hits comedy-wise.
But a bigger problem is perhaps the movie its story. It's such a simplistic, weak and formulaic written movie. It's also as if the story is being completely forgotten at times and the movie only serves as a medium for Will Ferrell to deliver as many funny moments as possible. Perhaps this is also due to the fact that Kent Alterman is still unexperienced as a director and this was actually his first directing job for a motion picture. He used to work before with Ferrell as an executive producer on the movie "Elf".
Still it's Will Ferrell who keeps the movie watchable and mostly fun to watch. This is a real Will Ferrell movie, which however also means that all of the other characters and actors are being pushed completely to the background. Even actors such as Woody Harrelson and Maura Tierney. Yes, they are in the movie but the movie basically would had been just as good with other, less known, actors in their roles, since this movie really basically is all about Will Ferrell. What's even the point of their roles really? So in a way Ferrell is both a strong as well as a weak point of the movie. Still of course the movie remains perfectly watchable for the fans of him.
It has entertainment value but not really a sport comedy I would recommend.
5/10
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