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| 'Semi-pro’ fails to score | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Craig Outhier, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| February 28, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Though recognizably the same beast as “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” and “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” the funnyman’s latest comedy, “Semi-Pro,” puts up a giant air ball. The humor is just too scattershot; the tone, too uneven. The unsolicited glimpses of Ferrell’s pale, flabby body, less funny than usual. Meet Jackie Moon (Ferrell), a weird caricature of 1970s sex-daddy smarminess who feels — to this critic, anyway — like an act of comedic desperation. As player-owner-coach for the (fictional) Flint Tropics of the now-defunct American Basketball Association, Moon is an exaggerated throwback to the Bill Russell-Red Auerbach days of on-court multitasking. He even does the Tropics’ pre-game announcements, albeit to an empty Rust Belt arena. The Tropics, to put it mildly, stink. Did I forget to mention that Moon is also a Barry White-style recording star, who used the proceeds from his hit single “Love Me Sexy” to purchase the Tropics? With his ’fro, his disco lounge and his Evel Knievel-inspired publicity stunts, Moon makes Ferrell’s Burgundy look like the subject of a sober A&E “Biography.” It’s as if screenwriter Scot Armstrong (“Old School”) threw every 70s cliché into a heap and hoped for the best. The rest is strictly pick-and-roll sports flick formula. Faced with extinction, the cellar-dwelling Tropics — led by silky-smooth star guard Clarence “Coffee” Black (Andre Benjamin) — have to pull themselves up in the standings in order to survive the impending merger with the NBA. Admittedly, Ferrell’s arm-flailing histrionics during a meeting with his fellow owner is pretty raucous stuff. “Semi-Pro” could have dribbled on like this — silly but steady — if not for the addition of Monix (Woody Harrelson), a veteran guard Moon acquires in trade to bolster the team’s playoff run. Suffice to say, Harrelson (“White Men Can’t Jump”) could not feel more alien in “Semi-Pro” if he walked out of a spaceship. In a wildly-misjudged play for romantic substance, director Kent Alterman intermittently shifts the focus to Monix and his ex-wife (Maura Tierney) — not only a flimsy rip-off of the Tom Berenger-Rene Russo subplot in “Major League,” but a restructuring that effectively reduces Ferrell to flabby comedic wallpaper. In “Semi-Pro,” the stupid-clever line is only as thin as the material of Moon’s short-shorts. And Ferrell stretches them to the limit. REVIEW ‘Semi-Pro’Cast: Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin, Maura Tierney Behind the scenes: Directed by Kent Alterman, from a script by Scot Armstrong Rated: R (profanity and some sexual content) 90 minutes — Grade: C- Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
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