Semi-Pro
2 Waffles!

I think I have to start this review by stating the obvious. I’m a guy. I am genetically programmed to laugh when someone gets kicked in a sensitive part of their body. I might even guffaw when someone trips and falls, or people start to dance in awkward ways. That’s why I don’t hate Semi-Pro

Set in 1976, Will Ferrell stars as Jackie Moon – the owner, coach and star player on the Flint Tropics basketball team in the American Basketball Association (ABA). After becoming a one hit wonder and millionaire with his disco tune Love Me Sexy (back in 1970 before disco was popular), Jackie has put his heart and soul into his hometown basketball team, even if it is misplaced at times. However, Jackie’s dream is about to come to an end. The ABA is planning a merger with the NBA, but only the top four teams in the ABA will become part of the NBA.

Can the perennial losers from Flint win enough games to make it to fourth place?

Can they draw enough fans?

While following a familiar style for Will Ferrell fans, Semi-Pro is a movie split into two personalities as it tries to be the Slap Shot of basketball, but can’t commit. On one hand, you have a goofy Will Ferrell comedy with some cartoonish characters taking silliness overboard for our amusement, and succeeding about half of the time. Yet, on the other hand, you have a traditional inspirational sports movie about the underdog trying to overcome the odds to win the big game. This split personality hurts the movie.

Semi-Pro is so clichéd it becomes the movie it is supposed to mock! You would think it would intentionally poke at the conventions it adopts, which would make for a funnier movie, but writer Scot Armstrong and director Kent Alterman don’t go for it. A love story is tossed in, but never really developed, and the audience gets to see a montage of the team coming together to propel themselves to the point where they might win the big game and finish in 4th place, but Semi-Pro is supposed to be funny.

While Ferrell is acting as goofy and crazy as you would expect, he is horribly out of tune with the rest of the movie, even if he makes you laugh the most. Some cast members like Will Arnett, Jackie Earle Haley and Andrew Daly got the memo about being funny, the rest of the cast, including Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin, and Maura Tierney act as if they are in a movie like Invincible or Rudy.

The two styles contrast in the worst way possible, and leaves the audience half satisfied. It is almost as if the cast and crew were playing a cruel prank on Ferrell seeing how long he would act in an imbecilic fashion for laughs, while everyone else is playing it straight. Semi-Pro is screaming out to be a parody of the traditional sports movie, especially in the hands of Ferrell, who does this better than anyone associated with movies like Meet The Spartans or Epic Movie, but no one answers the call to arms.

You can’t blame anyone in the cast for the contrasting approaches. The blame lies with Alterman, and maybe Ferrell, who should have realized this was going wrong and fixed it.

Semi-Pro is rated R for language and some sexual content