After “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby,” and “Blades
of Glory” in which Will Ferrell parodied NASCAR and figure skating, this year he
turned to basketball in “Semi-Pro,” another sport comedy, which opens this
Friday, Feb. 29.
The movie is set in 1976 and Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, an
owner, player and coach of the Flint Michigan Tropics, the worst basketball
team in history.
Moon achieved his dream of having his own basketball team
after he recorded a success with one hit wonder, “Love Me Sexy.”
As the American Basketball Association announce that it will
merge with NBA and that only four teams will be qualified, Moon sees himself in
a difficult position: to win the game in order to survive.
As the movie parodies basketball, it also gives attention to
the disco era, with big hair, shorts and stunts made in order to get attention.
In the movie Ferrell seems to be same old him, trying to
deliver pure stupid comedy with ridiculous scenes. Take for example the stunts
he makes during halftime: he has to wrestle a bear or get shot out of a cannon.
Speaking about those stunts Ferrell said: “I loved those, because
if you look at what they were doing in the ABA, that’s how the league survived. They did
all these stupid promotions to just get people in,” Bostonherald.com reports.
The movie also stars Woody Harrelson as Monix, a real
basketball player Moon hires to win the fourth place. Monix used to play in the
NBA, but now suffers from a knee injury, bad temper as well and has a weakness
for alcohol.
Even so, he arrives just in time to save the team and knows
much about the real game.
The movie doesn’t quite hit the note of comedy. Ferrell does
the entire job in the movie in his old fashion way, running around with no
reason whatsoever, wearing too much hair.
Ferrell mentioned that even though it looks like he has an
obsession with sport movies, it's not like that.
He said: "I love them, they're fun, but I'm not really
always like, 'OK, I gotta do a wind-surfing movie now,' " Chicago Tribune
informs.
