Will Arnett

Semi-Pro

First Hit: There are some truly funny vignettes holding together this mediocre film.

It’s probably not a good thing that I am not a Will Ferrell fan and reviewing a Will Ferrell film.

Like most of his movies, I find the juxtaposition of him as a person and the character he plays to be problematic. The most prominent of these is an underlying anger within him which he expresses overtly in his films while attempting to pass off as comedic.

Something about this anger being expressed in this way, just doesn’t work for me. In this film there are several moments showing this; one is during the meeting with the other basketball owners.

His anger (yelling and chair slamming) isn’t funny, nor is it real to the film but seems real to him – Ferrell. However, there are in all his films, including this one, some very funny scenes which bring up spontaneous laughter (I liked the outfits for the underwater sea halftime show – very funny).

The characters I enjoyed were Andre Benjamin as Clarence “Coffee” Black, Andrew Daly as Dick Pepperfield, and Will Arnett as Lou Redwood.

The brief premise is that Ferrell as Jackie Moon who sounds like Barry White sang a song his mother wrote called “Love Me Sexy” which has some horrible lyrics like “lick me sexy”. From the proceeds of this song he bought an ABA basketball franchise in Flint Michigan call “The Tropics”.

The league is going to merge with the NBA but only four teams will be part of the merge. Jackie convinces the ABA owners that the fairest way to select the teams to merge is how well they perform not their attendance or professionalism. He brings in a washed up star named Monix (played by Woody Harrelson) to help the team.

They do come together as a team, win some games and finish fourth but don’t make the NBA grade based on the other criteria.

Overall: A mediocre film with some truly funny bits but not enough to stay fully engaged.

googleaa391b326d7dfe4f.html