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Movie review: 'Semi-Pro'

Not even semi-funny

By Michael Phillips

Tribune critic
February 27, 2008

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1 1/2 stars (out of four)

Like so much in this life, Will Ferrell’s comedies tread the razor-thin line separating smart/stupid from stupid/stupid.

The flaming jazz flute solo and the “glass case of emotion” bit from “Anchorman”: in recent years, not much gets smarter/stupider than those scenes. The movie was dumb, just an amiably raunchy toss-off, as was last year’s “Blades of Glory” (which I also liked). But when Ferrell’s boorish self-confidence gives way to the adolescent marshmallow underneath, you realize why his portraits in boobus Americanus have found such a large audience.

The stridently raunchy “Semi-Pro” can’t touch the best comic moves of those two movies, unfortunately. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder whose single “Love Me Sexy” (think Barry White, but whiter) paves the way for Moon to head up his own American Basketball Association franchise, the Tropics of Flint, Mich. It’s the 1970s, taking Ferrell back to the “Anchorman” era, with a lot of the same jokes about smoking and drinking on the job.

Moon, with a moon-sized ’fro, is not much of a star player. He does not have game. This is one of the problems with “Semi-Pro”: The court scenes are rarely funny, either in the trash talk or the slapstick.

Woody Harrelson stars in the “Slapshot” half of the picture, the semi-sincere half. Moon recruits Harrelson’s character, Monix, a former NBA player, to help save the team from extinction when the NBA gobbles up the ABA. Maura Tierney plays Monix’s ex, whose current boyfriend (played by Rob Corddry) has a major man-crush on his favorite player, Monix.

The key scene in this subplot will serve as a prime example of how “Semi-Pro” flubs it. Here’s Corddry getting ready to pleasure himself while his girlfriend and Monix make love—yes, well, that’s potentially funny, but only if handled with the finesse of a master. Kent Alterman, a producer making his directorial debut, films this scene like it’s something out of a slasher film. Alterman has no knack for setting up a visual gag, setting a tone, establishing any sort of rhythm. A vignette where Jackie and his fellow players sit around with a loaded pistol playing Russian roulette is about as amusing as the comparable scenes in “The Deer Hunter.”

There are some laughs, including Farrell’s smart/stupid pronunciation of the phrase “annals of history.” A running gag involving a runaway bear (a distant cousin, perhaps, of the errant cougar from “Talladega Nights”) pays off at the climax. But the scenes with the bear are only worthwhile because Kristen Wiig has a tiny role as an inept animal trainer. Wiig, who nearly stole “Knocked Up” from the leads, gets better mileage from 30 seconds of screen time, just by being so cluelessly blase about her line of work, than the rest of the cast manages in 90 minutes. Better luck and a better Ferrell vehicle next time.

mjphillips@tribune.com