Southwestern College Collegian

Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: Movie Review

Nothing but net, slam dunk, swish and any other basketball cliché that comes to mind. Will Ferrell's latest movie Semi-Pro is another solid outing for the former Saturday Night Live star. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, owner, player, and coach as a part of the American Basketball Association's Flint Tropics in 1976, starring along side Ferrell is Andre' Benjamin and Woody Harrelson. Benjamin plays the Tropics leading scorer to Harrelson's hard nosed leader role as the three try to save the struggling franchise from going under. Once I got home from the theatre, I looked up some quick facts about the old ABA and was interested to learn the movie did not stray far from fact. However there was no Tropics team in Flint Michigan in case anyone was wondering. The movie starts off on a medium pace and does not really sway from it for the entire 90 minutes. It is different than past Ferrell movies on several accounts. One thing that many may be surprised to find out, like I was, is that Semi-Pro is rated R. Talladega Nights, Anchorman, and Blades of Glory were all rated PG-13. As a result of the stricter rating, the new film utilizes profanity in a fair amount of its humor. High school and college folk should get along with this movie quite nicely. I will be interested to see if the movie can hold its No. 1 box office status for more than just opening weekend. While I was glad the funniest parts were not shown in the previews, I was a little disappointed with a few parts of the movie. I went in expecting Will Ferrell to be the top notch basketball all-star when instead his character is somewhat scatter brained. The thing that was really annoying to me was some of the comedy seemed forced. It didn't flow like I thought it should in some parts. On the whole the movie was quite good though. I wouldn't mind seeing Semi-Pro once again because I wouldn't have all of my preconceived notions. One might go in thinking is that this is going to be your average sport parody movie with the far superior team and an underdog. There is not much attention focused on that. The movie really tends more to individual character struggles and sorry lines. The characters in the movie are memorable, but I will remember other Ferrell movies more for their characters than this one. If I had to rank it on my list of Ferrell movies, after this one viewing of it, I would put Anchorman at one, Talladega Nights at two and then Semi-Pro, Stranger than Fiction is the odd man out thanks to the release of Semi-Pro. But the good news is there is a Ferrell movie out and I'm sure in no time, college students everywhere will be spouting off quotes from it. I know I am. I just can't wait for the rest of my friends to start quoting lines with me. Nate Jones is a junior majoring in communication. You may e-mail him at nate.jones@sckans.edu

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