Flickerings: INDEX OF MOVIE REVIEWS
Flickerings: INDEX OF MOVIE REVIEWS
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Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell; Talladega Nights) is a very lightly regarded basketball impresario in Flint, Michigan. His Tropics are the joke of the American Basketball Association, and the player/manager/owner is barely keeping his team afloat with the royalties from his one soul hit: “Love Me Sexy.” When he learns his team is being excluded from the NBA merger, Jackie scrambles to save it, stepping up his desperate promotions and bringing in a new player, Monix (Woody Harrelson; No Country for Old Men), to teach his team how to play.
It’s pretty much what you might expect for a Will Ferrell comedy. The movie is full of quick one-liners, a touch of creepy humor and ample slapstick swirled together by Ferrell’s own cartoonish effervescence. Much fun is had in lampooning the cool scene of the ’70s and the early evolution of basketball. Jackie Moon is also billed as the father of modern seat-filling promotions, as his snowballing, desperate grabs for attention make a fine lampoon of modern seat-filling gimmicks.
The movie’s good for laughs so long as you can enjoy stupid humor. Kent Alterman makes his directorial debut with this movie, having executive produced such cousinry as Balls of Fury and Mr. Woodcock. The pedigree shows here, for good and ill. But director seems a strong word, as Alterman basically surrenders the camera to Ferrell’s madness. Fine enough if you’re a fan of the comedian, but if you require a ringmaster to bring focus to Ferrell’s circus, Semi-Pro might prove exhausting.
Basic story structure is there, but execution is inconsistent. Scenes are inserted for the sake of gags but not neatly tied in with the story. They are often funny, as in the jive turkey tangent, but they can muss up the flow. Monix as the battered vet trying to love the game again and Coffee Black (André Benjamin; Idlewild) as the aspiring rough talent promise to deepen story development, but both are upstaged by Ferrell.
Dodge Ball, a classic slapstick in the sports vein, succeeded in part because it developed a solid storyline and shared the camera among several fun characters. It was a team effort. Ferrell proves a ball hog, and complementary characters are elbowed aside with the plot in his maelstrom.
That said, there is fun to be had. As Ferrell vehicles go, this one runs a little rough but gets you where you’re going. If you’re simply looking for something to laugh at, this will fit the bill. But anyone with a low tolerance for Ferrell should pass.
Fair comedy • R • 90 min.
Marginalized high school oddballs adventure for glory and girls in this smart adolescent comedy.
Seth (Jonah Hill: Knocked Up) and Evan (Michael Cera: Arrested Development) have been best friends since elementary school; now it’s senior year and they’re confronting the prospect of separation. They have only one summer left before they must peel themselves apart to different universities.
But college has other concerns as well, and Seth in particular is panicked that they must chase away the specter of virginity before they leave for the great beyond. So, when cool-girl Jules (Emma Stone) needs a hand bootlegging booze for a party, Seth seizes the opportunity. In one grand scheme the pals aspire to deliveryman glory, by which they might impair the judgment of their crushes long enough to snare them for summer-long committals that might in turn, eventually, whisk away said specter. To that end, the pair tap friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) as their fake-ID-toting procurer and stumble into desperate misadventure.
Superbad’s premise is enough to tempt comparisons to American Pie. But they’re very different movies. American Pie thrived on a simple recipe of gross-out gags and humiliation. Superbad, on the other hand, is ambrosia.
At the film’s core is awkward candor and naïve, curse-filled, bravado-puffed bluster delivered as intelligent banter. Screenwriters Seth Rogen (lead actor of Knocked Up) and Evan Goldberg started penning this script when they were 13, and it shows in their adolescent empathy. Well-placed comic violence and absurdity keep the story rolling briskly along, while the dramatic angle of the friends’ separation anxiety deepens the story just enough to keep it smart and earnest.
Judd Apatow (Freaks and Geeks; 40 Year Old Virgin) has a hand in this movie as producer, and much of the talent are vets of his past projects. Director Greg Mottola runs with the Apatow aesthetic of unflinching absorption of the awkward and strange, playing uncomfortably realistic situations for cringing laughs. There are scenes of drugging and drinking, but they aren’t glossed. Rather, the scenes are almost confrontationally realistic: ugly and a little bit dangerous. Juxtaposing the naïve teens amid this, putting them in way over their heads, makes for a shock of extremely effective holy-*bleep* humor.
Measured slapstick, one tremendous gross-out gag and scads of humorously crass material shine as well, but nothing gets funnier than the determined corruption of Fogell. Spindly and flailing as a spring fawn, the geek aspires to hip-hop excess even as he stumbles through his own nervous fear. His evolution is the most dynamic of the movie and easily makes him the best character in it; newcomer Mintz-Plasse steals every scene.
Anchoring all is the film’s dramatic underpinnings. The two best friends of the film are struggling with the break up their lifelong codependence and must deal with a little bit of hard soul-searching. From their own little world, this one crazy night serves as their induction into the big world outside. It all proves realistically overwhelming, and their buddy drama blends seamlessly among the goofiness, giving substance to the story.
While Mintz-Plasse steals the scenes, everybody’s spot-on. The film never misses a beat, neatly pacing a consistent blend of the slapstick, strange and sincere throughout.
Fans of Apatow et al. will definitely dig this film. Those shy of crass material might wilt at the dialogue’s salty onslaught, but this one is a smart feast regardless.
Great comedy • R • 114 min.