i have a great idea for a movie , one that ca n't miss .
see , i 've got coolio to do a song for the soundtrack , and about fifty athletes and celebrities to do cameo appearances .
it 's about professional basketball , so i 'll release it right around the nba finals to guarantee added publicity .
as for what the movie is actually about . . .
well , that will all sort itself out eventually .
i figure it will be a comedy , so i 'll throw a half - dozen writers at it and take the best of whatever they come up with .
maybe we 'll put a gender spin on it , see if we can get some women out to see it , too .
eddie is one of those phenomenally lazy films that infuriates me more than any other kind .
twister , as inane as the script might have been , at least required some creative technicians ; mission : impossible , overwrought plot and all , at least involved genuine effort .
eddie just sits there , hawking up a formula story without any laughs , and makes every possible bad decision when a decision is required .
whoopi goldberg plays eddie franklin , a new york limo driver and die - hard knicks fan who is suffering through a dismal season for her beloved team .
coach john bailey ( dennis farina ) has lost control of his overpaid prima donnas , and the losses are beginning to mount .
the dwindling attendance inspires new team owner wild bill burgess ( frank langella ) to try a publicity stunt in which a lucky fan will get to be an honorary coach of the team .
the winner ( surprise , surprise ) is eddie , who becomes a fan favorite , and eventually the actual coach .
the knicks continue to lose , but eddie has some sassy tricks up her sleeve to inspire her troops .
incidentally , the knicks eventually start winning .
please raise your hand if that comes as a shock , and i will invite you to my all - night marathon of the bad news bears , major league , angels in the outfield , the mighty ducks , the big green , cool runnings and little giants .
awful teams in sports comedies make miraculous turnarounds ; it 's what they do .
those teams usually involve kids , for a very sound comedic reason : it 's funnier when they screw up , and they 're more sympathetic .
those which _ do n't _ involve kids usually have actual actors in the lead roles , for another very sound comedic reason : they generally have developed some sort of comic timing .
eddie was cast under the misguided premise that it 's easier to make basketball players look like actors than it is to make actors look like basketball players .
this finds nba players like greg ostertag , dwayne schintzius , rick fox and malik sealy delivering punch lines as though they were reading them for the first time off a bazooka wrapper
( though sacramento kings center olden polynice has a nice moment describing a black hole to fellow players ) .
perhaps that all did n't matter to anyone because there are so few punch lines , and because the whole film is one big casting gimmick .
steve rash directs
the spiritless script as though waving a flag of surrender and screaming , " do n't blame me , i just work here .
"
perhaps it was patently obvious to him that eddie is n't a movie -- it 's a cameo appearance that trips over a plot every once in a while .
among the notables who lend their faces to this travesty are donald trump , new york mayor rudolph giulianni , former new york mayor ed koch , david letterman , letterman regulars mujibur rahman and sirajul islam , espn broadcaster chris berman and knicks announcer marv albert , as well as dozens of nba players and several nba arenas .
and those are the real jokes in eddie .
nothing these individuals say or do is funny ; you are supposed to be laughing simply because you notice , " hey , it 's donald trump ! " or " hey , it 's mujibur and sirajul !
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it 's difficult to decide whether eddie is so bad because it was so shamelessly lacking in imagination or because it ca n't even get the cliches in a cliche - ridden genre script right .
the knicks coach who is eddie 's antagonist early in the film reappears at the end , but he is n't given a chance to be the villain eddie desperately needs .
neither is frank langella , and none of the athlete - actors have the ability to give whoopi goldberg anything to play off of .
that leaves her to do her street - wise miss thang routine , but with no character , no sharp lines and no help .
eddie is n't just a bad movie with a formulaic premise .
it 's a movie that makes you feel cheated and offended , because someone came up with a poster and a marketing plan to which they had to attach an actual movie , and you had the nerve to believe it was going to be a comedy .
delivering punch lines as though they were reading them for the first time off a bazooka wrapper the whole film is one big casting gimmick one of those phenomenally lazy films that infuriates me more than any other kind the spiritless script with no character , no sharp lines and no help is n't just a bad movie with a formulaic premise . it 's a movie that makes you feel cheated and offended was cast under the misguided premise just sits there , hawking up a formula story without any laughs is so bad because it was so shamelessly lacking in imagination or because it ca n't even get the cliches in a cliche - ridden genre script right