Keene Equinox

Issue date: 3/13/08 Section: A & E

Media Credit: courtesy photo

Will Ferrell has the holy trinity of codas. It is one that regurgitates the same shtick in the same movie but with characters dressed in different costumes, hairdos and accents in the vein of Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller. In "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," Ferrell was the lead news anchor who was suave with women and not much else. In the sports canon, he's played a silly soccer coach in "Kicking and Screaming," a sillier NASCAR driver in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and an egotistical ice skater in "Blades of Glory," who continues the silliness saga as yet another man-child reaching for greatness.

The problem is that Ferrell doing his thing in every one of his movies one reviewer called it "Ferrelicious"- looks as if it's written by the same person, someone jazzed to keep the sports comedy formula alive but is noticeably lacking in ideas. Sadly, Ferrell does get attacked by another animal in "Semi-Pro;" it just so happens to be a bear. Here he is Jackie Moon, another dimwit (with a blond, spongy afro this time), who owns the Flint Tropics, a lower class basketball team in 1970s Michigan. Jackie is a fake advertiser. He flaunts his team, bad as they are, does news interviews and even sings his own theme song (written by his mother), "Love Me Sexy," before the start of every game. It's a set-up that tells us he believes even two people coming to one of his games is a success and dressing his team up in sea horse and clam shell costumes to do a half-time dance performance would be entertaining to the public eye. This all comes off as rather pathetic.

At the start of the movie, the ABA (American Basketball Association) and the NBA (National Basketball Association) are going to be joined together, but only four teams will be added to the mix. To prove his team's talent, Moon starts a contest of sorts that will decide what the top four teams are by the end of the season. However, Jackie's team needs a makeover to reboot dwindling failure. An answer lands in the lap of the Tropics. In exchange for a washing machine, Moon picks up Monix (Woody Harrelson) a burnout Boston Celtics player who has the reputation of being a mediocre player on a great team. Monix, the only person invested in the game, shapes the team up and typically the Tropics get better and better.

Rounding out the rest of the cast is Andre Benjamin as the star player Clarence "Coffee" Black, Andy Richter and Maura Tierney. Will Arnett and Andrew Daily playfully named Dick Pepperfield play the standard borderline amusing movie sports broadcasters. For one strange reason or another, recent Oscar nominee Jackie Earl Haley pops in and out briefly as a stoner and exuberant fan of the Tropics.

"Semi-Pro" takes the miniempire Ferrell has built all of his gags on and essentially flushes it down the toilet, serving as the proverbial nail in the coffin for his kind of humor.

Before, the jokes careened on stupid but we laughed because they were so. Now they draw attention to themselves and it becomes obvious during the opening credits what came before has been milked dry. Even the back and forth court action during games is poorly shot, uninspired and, dare I say, boring. The bear attack was a great moment but the only great moment. It proved that what is funny and what no longer can be funny somehow can work with the right staging and timing. With Ferrell we expect it and demand it. By asking for recycled material the leash that we have him on gets shorter, draining the fun, or the funk, out of all of it.



Greg O'Neil is a freshman majoring in journalism. His views do not necessarily reflect those of The Equinox.

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