Woody Harrelson stars as Marcus in this hilarious and heartwarming story of a former minor league basketball coach who, after a series of missteps is ordered by the court as a 90 day community service to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities. He soon realizes that despite his doubts about this team being able to do anything that resembles basketball, together, ultimately this team can go further than they ever imagined. This not only becomes a learning lesson for the players, which include Cosentino (Madison Tevlin), Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), Darius (Joshua Felder), Cory (Ashton Gunning) and others, but for Marcus as well.
Others to round out the cast are Kaitlin Olson as Alex, Matt Cook as Sonny, Ernie Hudson as Coach Phil Perretti, Cheech Marin as Julio, James Day Keith as Benny, Casey Metcalfe as Marlon, Bradley Edens as Showtime, Tom Sinclair as Blair, Matthew Von Der Ahe as Craig, Alex Hintz as Arthur and Barbara Pollard as Dot.
This was directed with humor and heart by Bobby Farrelly ("Kingpin" '96, "There's Something About Mary" '98, "Me, Myself & Irene" 2000, "Osmosis Jones" '01, "Shallow Hal" '01, "Stuck on You" '03, "Blitt Happens" '03, "Fever Pitch" '05, "The Heartbreak Kid" '07, "Hall Pass" '11, "The Three Stooges" '12, "Dumb and Dumber To" '14) plus TV and videos. Certainly, when it comes to hilarious films, the Farrelly Brothers are kings. This being directed by only one of the brothers makes it funny, but not with the same acerbic wit as something like "There's Something About Mary"--of course these are very different films, still the humor is definitely more toned down. It was executed well by writer Mark Rizzo ("Zip" (TV movie) '08) plus TV, based on the Spanish film "Campeones" and story by Javier Fesser and David Marques. Not sure how the film that this movie was based on was developed, but this film, as with many of the 'underdog' films was a bit predictable and it became a little slow in some very small places, otherwise, this script was everything we were probably looking for. What did make this a bit more original than the other 'underdog' films was the fact the rag tag team was comprised of people with tramatic brain injuries (TBI), down's syndrome and the like which did make it much more intriguing. Rizzo doesn't have a plethora of experience under his belt, but assuming he receives more work from this film, he will become quite the writer.
Certainly if you like Woody Harrelson, you'll love this. Harrelson never seems to take an acting gig just to act, but for the subject matter or maybe who he will be working with, but one definitely can't pigeon-hole this actor. His eclectic roles vary across the spectrum. This film is funny, has heart and a great message about not giving up whether one is playing basketball or is the coach.
Out of 4 Stars: 3 Rated PG-13 124mins.
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