As we pull up to certain familiar and favorite restaurants, we know exactly what we’re in for before we park the car, and that’s exactly why we keep coming back. There will be no huge surprises, no great revelations — but we’re almost never disappointed.
The feel-good sports comedy/drama “Champions” is the Olive Garden Cheesecake Factory Outback Steakhouse Panera Bread of movies, and I say that with affection and no condescension. We know we’ll be fed something we’ve consumed many times before, and there’s not a single development that comes as even a mild surprise, and it makes for a comforting, enjoyable and satisfying experience.
Based on the 2018 Spanish film “Campeones,” which was inspired by the true story of the Valencian Special Olympics team Aderes, “Champions” features a winning, low-key performance by Woody Harrelson as Marcus Marakovich, a talented but self-destructive basketball coach who once coached D1 hoops but most recently was working as an assistant for a G League minor league team — and couldn’t even hang onto that job after he pushed his friend and mentor, the avuncular head coach Phil Perretti (Ernie Hudson), during a heated timeout exchange.
Things go from bad to disastrous when a heavily intoxicated Marcus plows into a parked police car, resulting in the judge telling Marcus he has two choices: spend 18 months behind bars, or serve 90 days of community service coaching the Friends, a Des Moines basketball team of adults with intellectual disabilities. (Don’t you love it when a judge sentences the main character to essentially be in a movie?)
With director Bobby Farrelly (making his solo directorial debut after partnering with his brother Peter on films such as “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber” and “Shallow Hal”) never missing the opportunity to execute a slightly bawdy joke or an easy visual gross-out gag, and screenwriter Mark Rizzo doling out the largely amusing one-liners in steady fashion, “Champions” introduces us to a likable cast of main players. Hey, there’s the always reliable Cheech Marin as Julio, the manager of the rec center where the Friends practice and play their home games, and how about the wonderful and fantastically tart Kaitlin Olson as Alex, the fiercely protective older sister of one of the players. Perfect casting.
Also front and center are the Friends, a likable and endearing bunch that includes Kevin Iannucci’s Johnny, James Day Keith’s Benny, Madison Tevlin’s Consentino, Joshua Felder’s Darius and Matthew Von Der Ahe’s Craig. (All of the Friends are played by actors with intellectual disabilities, and they’re all terrific.)
With a running time of 124 minutes, “Champions” has enough breathing room to give each of the Friends a distinctive personality trait or two as we follow some of their lives beyond the court. It’s a real treat getting to know them. (Madison Tevlin is a particular scene-stealer as the supremely self-assured Consentino, who at one point bluntly tells Marcus that in the looks department, “You’re no McConaughey.”)
“Champions” has the look and feel of a late 1990s/early 2000s middlebrow comedy, right down to soundtrack selections such as “Hey Ya!” by Outkast and “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba. The villains are minor characters painted in cartoonishly broad strokes, with the real conflict involving Marcus and whether he’ll come to regard this gig as more than an obligation as he truly learns from this experience — or if he’ll exploit the situation to rehab his image and land a REAL coaching job. (The suspense is killing … no one.)
And yet within the predictable framework, there are moments of originality and substance, e.g., the relationship between Marcus and Alex, who is a complex, smart, fully realized character, thanks in large part to Kaitlin Olson’s authentic and grounded performance. Whether Alex is tooling around in her battered but reliable, Shakespearean-themed RV (it’s a whole thing), mincing no words in assessing Marcus’ bedroom abilities or allowing herself to drop her guard and consider the possibility of a long-term relationship with Marcus, we believe this is a person with a real life and not just your usual Convenient Love Interest.
Same goes for the Friends, e.g., Joshua Felder’s Darius, who has legit basketball skills but keeps saying “Nope” when asked to rejoin the squad (when we learn why, we understand completely) and Kevin Iannucci’s Johnny, who is Alex’s little brother and wants to move into a group home but is having trouble mustering the courage to tell Alex that because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. All good stuff.
Say what you will about the Farrelly brothers as a team or individuals, they are to be commended for casting people with disabilities for more than two decades. This time around, we’ve come to know the Friends as true champions well before the Big Game.
