Ferrell gets few assists in sports farce ‘Semi-Pro’

The supporting cast didn’t have
anything funny to work with.

By ROGER MOORE

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Woody Harrelson jabs a knife into a basketball in the “time to get serious” scene about 45 minutes into “Semi-Pro,” the Will Ferrell comedy about the American Basketball Association.

And that’s pretty much when the air goes out of the movie, a raunchy celebration of the garish goofiness of the last days of the ABA.

Up until then, it’s been all layups and dunks as the tall, goofy Ferrell, star of “Kicking and Screaming,” “Blades of Glory” and “Talladega Nights,” plays in his favorite milieu — the lowbrow sports farce.

“Semi-Pro” is all about the funk, the ’fros, the fun of the ABA. “Semi-Pro” brings back the league that played with style, that played with that red, white and blue ball, that played to nearly empty arenas in cities like Roanoke and Louisville until 1976. That’s when the NBA absorbed four ABA teams and let the rest die a merciful death.

Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, the doughy power forward for the Flint Tropics (a fictional team). He’s not just the afro-wearing heart of the team, he’s the coach. And thanks to his hit disco single, “Love Me [Lick Me] Sexy,” he’s the owner, too.

So Jackie’s not just on the court in those short-shorter-shortest shorts of the 1970s. He sings his hit single to open the games. He does the team introductions. He stages promotional stunts (skate-jumping the bikini-clad cheerleaders, wrestling a bear) and choreographs team dance numbers.

Ferrell is almost a one-man show in this not-quite-formula sports romp. The script isn’t much, and they scrimped on his comic supporting cast. Thus, while funk-rapper Andre Benjamin makes a convincing pro baller and wears an afro well, he doesn’t earn a single laugh. Nor does Harrelson, playing the aging point guard who already has an NBA championship ring, one he doesn’t feel he deserves.

At least half of the profane and sometimes drunk broadcast team for the Tropics, the Will Arnett half, is hilarious.

Tim Meadows, Jackie Earle Haley, David Koechner and others show up but just don’t have anything funny to work with.

Ferrell is pretty much all there is to this movie about a doomed team trying to fight its way to fourth place so that they have a shot at joining the NBA. He lands big laughs before the first image pops up on the screen, singing that silly and blue disco hit. He does the usual Ferrell shtick — running around with no purpose, showing off the “skater’s bod” he grew for “Blades of Glory,” wearing way too much hair.

Ferrell clocks his overtime here because the script had a great hook and nothing else. It promised to be a hoops version of “Slapshot.” But saddling the film with a generally unfunny love story doesn’t help. Maura Tierney is the old flame of Monix (Harrelson’s character), and her current beau (Rob Corrdry, over the top) is such a fan he doesn’t seem to mind losing his girl to the guy with the “Welcome Back, Kotter” hair.

“Semi-Pro” tries for semi-sweet when bittersweet would have been better, semi-silly when full-bore absurd was called for. And the final score? Semi-funny.