Product: Dodgeball/Borat Bonus Preview Disc (2004)
Rating: 5.0
Humping A Good-Vs.-Evil Plot Into Submission
To be honest, there's nothing on display here that even comes within sniffing distance of "new" or "original," but director Rawson Marshall Thurber has nonetheless delivered the physical comedy goods in spades with a tried-and-true plot of good versus evil; the hopeless no-lifers of Peter La Fleur's (Vince Vaughn) Regular Joe's Gym against White Goodman (Ben Stiller) and a phalanx of smug muscleheads from Globo Gym in a dodgeball tournament with a $50,000 top prize, precisely the amount La Fleur needs to pony up to prevent foreclosure on his gym by Goodman.Vaughn and Stiller are both terrific in the lead roles, but it's Rip Torn who perhaps turns in the performance of his career, chewing up scenery as the crusty, slightly tetched, wheelchair-bound Patches O'Houlihan, former seven-time dodgeball all-star, who takes La Fleur's clueless misfits and molds them into clueless winners with a training regimen that includes dodging wrenches and traffic, verbal intimidation, and a take-no-prisoners approach to the game. The only downside to Torn's portrayal is trying to deflect my kids' questions about snatches of dialogue like "queerbait," "crotch stain," "dyke," and "a bunch of retards trying to hump a doorknob" with "Go ask your mother."