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Semi-Pro

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

What I understand least about Semi-Pro is its decision to go for an R rating. For a movie that strives only to be the latest among a profitable line of Will Ferrell sports movies, complete with a marketable central character and a concept built for comedic potential, the decision to prevent the majority of Ferrell’s audience from seeing the movie is a little baffling. There’s not even any nudity or violence – just cut out the six or seven uses of the F-bomb and you’ve got a PG-13 and about $50 million more dollars.

Forgive me for talking more about business than plot, but that’s ultimately all the movie’s interested in, too. It does give us a better-than average premise – a team trying to survive the real-life merger of the ABA into the NBA in 1976 – and uses it for a handful of half-baked gags and typical Ferrell humor that, I hate to say it, is getting a little old by this point. Still, it’s not fatigue that prevented me from laughing – it’s just that the movie’s not that funny.

Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a onetime singer whose biggest single, “Love Me Sexy,” hit number one. He’s now the owner/coach/player of the Flint Tropics, a ragtag team in the American Basketball Association which regularly gets crowds of about ninety people.

When the ABA announces that it will disband, with the four best teams folded into the NBA, Moon convinces the powers that be (led by David Koechner) to wait until the season’s over to see which four teams are most successful – both in their record and their fan turnout.

On the first point, Moon recruits Monix (Woody Harrelson), a benchwarmer from the NBA who left an old flame (Maura Tierney) in Flint. The second point is basically an excuse for Moon to do lots of crazy things to draw publicity to the team, like wrestling a bear and convincing his teammates to wear eyeliner.

The weird thing is, Moon’s central presence actually detracts from the subplots of the film, which I found much more interesting. You get the sense that Harrelson and Tierney, both fine dramatic actors, could’ve been great in a movie that actually took their subplot seriously. Ditto the rivalry between Monix and the Tropics’ current star Coffee Black (Andre Benjamin). Harrelson and Benjamin have good chemistry together, and it goes completely to waste.

There are redeeming comedic moments in Semi-Pro, just not that many. I did laugh a number of times, usually whenever Will Arnett and Andrew Daly showed up as the team’s two commentators. If you know Arnett, you already know he’s one of the funniest actors out there, but Daly, with a perfect delivery, was a real discovery to me; some of the banter ...