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These movies are rare but come along from time to time. A film where I have already wasted 90 plus minutes watching it and now for me to have to give
even more of my life to write about it just makes me that much disgusted. My first reaction is to just say skip this film and stay home and stick your
hand in the garbage disposal. It will be less painful and go a lot faster. This could possibly be the worst film I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of bad movies. So this review is more therapeutic for me to try and understand why this was even thought to be funny. So bear with me on this one because I have to vent a little. I will still stay true to my journalistic beliefs and will just tell it like it is. And if it matters, the film is about an Basketball team owner/coach/player (Ferrell) in the 70's trying to get his ABA team merged into the NBA. 

Let me first say that I am a huge Will Ferrell fan. Like many funny men and women he can say just about anything and it is hilarious to me. But you have
to give him something clever to say. There were people in the screening laughing at everything he uttered because it was Will  and I wanted to ask
them, are you really listening to the words coming out of his face or are you just laughing because you think you have to? I blame the writers of course. When you have a talent like Ferrell, and a setting like the 1970's basketball era, you have the makings of what could be a slam dunk comedy. But the idiots writing the script decided that instead of penning anything clever they would instead just fill it full of crude, redundant, thoughtless chatter. I can picture then in my mind setting around a table. They are trying to decide what the character should say next and coming up with nothing so they decide, "well, let's just have him cuss out his teammate and talk about his sexual preference". Then 5 minutes later they still have no ideas and decide to just copy and paste the same stupid, Neanderthal line they used earlier. It was ridiculous. I was embarrassed for the people in the theater who were laughing. Did they check their brain at the door?

Let's use Anchorman as an example of what worked. Though it was crude at times it made clever use of the era of '70's broadcasting, clothes, etc, to
develop these witty lines and expressions. Sure it was stupid at times, but it worked. There are many lines from that film that I quote often. They put
some thought behind the stupidity. Here they let stupid run rampant. My hope is that after the screenings they will go into the editing room and revamp
this some to try and make it at least decent. At the time I am writing this the preview trailer says the rating is pending. Maybe they are thinking if cutting the foulness out. The screening I saw, there was no way this would be less than a strong R rating simply due to the unnecessary crude language. These are grown men and they have written a script as if they are 13 years old and trying to cuss for the first time. It is such a waste of Will's talent. The couple of scenes that do work, and they are few, are when they are making fun of the era they are portraying. Why even go tot the trouble of creating characters if they are never going to say anything in character?

Anyway, I am done with this film and unfortunately writing all of this didn't work as therapy either. I don't feel any better and still want to bury this film and keep everyone I can from seeing it. There is way too much out there to spend your hard earned buck on so stay as far away from this as you can. Go rent Blades of Glory or Anchorman. At least those made an attempt at humor and many times succeeded. And Will? He needs to rethink what he is doing before he runs his entire career in the ground. I don't give this film anything. I gave it my time which was more than it deserved. hmm, maybe a do feel a little better now.

Matt Mungle (2/22/08)

 Matt is a member of the North Texas Film Critics Association (NTFCA) and co-hosts a weekly radio feature, The Mungles on Movies, with his wife Cindy. For additional reviews, interview clips and great DVD giveaways, visit the website www.mungleshow.com"

# of tocks (0 out of 5)

Review copyright 2008 Mungleshow Productions. Used by Permission.