The Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby, made their name with blunt slapstick comedies such as There’s Something About Mary, Me Myself & Irene and Shallow Hal – films with a gross-out edge that tended to delight audiences while dividing critics. Peter (who took the solo directing credit on the brothers’ first hit, Dumb and Dumber) struck awards gold with Green Book, a bland period road movie that became the Driving Miss Daisy of its time when it won the Oscar for best picture in 2019. Now Bobby makes his solo feature directorial debut with this very likable sports comedy – a remake of the 2018 Spanish film Campeones (inspired by the real-life story of the Aderes basketball team in Burjassot) that delivers belly laughs and heartfelt charm in equal measure.
Woody Harrelson, who starred in the Farrellys’ 1996 bowling comedy Kingpin, plays Marcus Marakovich, an irascible assistant coach working in minor league basketball whose life unravels when he fights with his superior Phil (Ernie Hudson) on court and then drunkenly rear-ends a cop car on the road. To avoid prison, Marcus accepts 90 days’ community service coaching “adults with intellectual disabilities”. “Your honour, are we talking re… retar…?” bumbles Marcus clumsily, before protesting: “If I can’t use the R-word, what do I call them?” “May I suggest,” replies the judge, “that you call them by their names.”
“You don’t have to turn them into the Lakers,” says recreation centre manager Julio (a nicely understated turn from former gonzo legend Cheech Marin). “They just need to feel like a team.” That team includes Kevin Iannucci’s Johnny (“I’m the homie with an extra chromie!”), an animal-lover with an aversion to showers, whose sister Alex (Kaitlin Olson) has already made Marcus’s acquaintance – albeit briefly. Then there’s Marlon (Casey Metcalfe), a walking encyclopedia who “knows stuff”; Darius (Joshua Felder), a talented player with forgiveness problems who refuses to play ball (“Nope!”); Cosentino (Madison Tevlin), who kicks ass in every sense; and Showtime (Bradley Edens), an “individualist” whose signature move is shooting from centre court with his back turned to the basket. “Has he ever scored?” asks Marcus. “In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never even hit the rim,” comes the reply. “But he’s due.”
You don’t have to be a sports movie enthusiast to know exactly how the plot will progress; how Marcus’s dreams of landing an NBA job will be unexpectedly boosted by this enforced assignment; how his growing dedication to “the Friends” will be rewarded by a shot at a big Special Olympics prize in Winnipeg in Canada; and how the opportunity of an escape from dreary Des Moines, Iowa, will surface just as Marcus finally learns “to make relationships”. There’s even a smartly deployed use of the now familiar Rocky finale that reliably reminds us that victory lies more in the heart than on the scoreboard.
What makes Champions a treat is the deftness with which Mark Rizzo’s script sidesteps sentimentality in favour of something more raucously truthful, conjuring fully rounded characters with believably messy lives, all delivered with Dodgeball-style sporting chutzpah. As for the cast, they are terrific, with the screen newcomers more than holding their own against more seasoned players. Of course, the Farrelly brothers have a long history of diverse casting, with the US philanthropic Ruderman Family Foundation presenting them in 2020 with an award “in recognition of their advocacy for the inclusive and authentic representation of people with disabilities in the entertainment industry”. But the Champions ensemble takes this to the next level, showcasing a host of rising talent, with particular plaudits to Tevlin and Iannucci, both of whom have scene-stealing charisma and note-perfect comic timing to spare.
As is typical with a Farrelly film, the jukebox needle-drops are adroitly chosen, from the carpool karaoke of Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping (the film’s de facto theme song) through EMF’s riotous Unbelievable to an unexpected appearance of Rupert Holmes’s Escape (The Piña Colada Song). Meanwhile, solidly unsoppy chemistry between Harrelson (who got his big-screen breakthrough role in the basketball comedy White Men Can’t Jump) and Olson kicks things into the tonal ballpark of the Kevin Costner-Rene Russo charmer Tin Cup, providing a wise-crackingly dry romantic counterpoint to the uplifting on-court action.
