BEFORE: I suppose I could have tracked down and watched "Bend It Like Beckham", in honor of the World Cup starting next week - plus that would have made back-to-back British films, and made a fine link to tonight's soccer film. But the IFC Channel isn't airing it until Saturday, and I don't want to wait to start my Will Ferrell chain. For that matter, I also passed on "Hoosiers" and "*61" earlier this week - anyway, the point of this project was not to be comprehensive and watch every film, but rather to get around to watching the films already in my collection. And I've got a week's worth of Will Ferrell films - he may not be on a par with DeNiro or Schwarzenegger, but he's definitely made some films on my list that I'm eager to watch, considering how funny "Anchorman" and "Blades of Glory" were.
THE PLOT: Phil Weston, a lifelong victim of his father's competitive nature, takes on the coaching duties of a kids' soccer team.
AFTER: It just occurred to me that June is the month of Father's Day, and this marks the third film in a row featuring a father who becomes over-competitive, which threatens the relationship with his son.
I won't spoil the ending of this film, but if you've ever seen "The Bad News Bears" you might have an idea where this is going (in fact, I could have sworn at least one of these soccer kids was also in the "Bad News Bears" remake, but IMDB says I'm wrong...). A ragtag bunch of misfits, with an incompetent coach, that starts to succeed after recruiting a ringer - or two, in this case, Italian brothers who are studying to become butchers, but have incredible soccer skills.
The problem becomes, once Ferrell's character gets a taste of sweet victory, he wants desperately to get his Tigers team to the finals, where he would face his own father (Robert Duvall), the coach of the Gladiators. So the game-plan becomes "Pass the ball to the Italians" - which I personally wouldn't have a problem with. Since when was "pass the ball to Michael Jordan" or "throw the ball to Jerry Rice" ever a bad idea?
But, since this is about kids playing soccer, I guess every kid deserves some playing time, since there are more important things than winning... Really? Seems like a bit of an odd message for a sports film. Even the "Bad News Bears" learned how to win... Yeah, yeah, fair play, there is no "I" in "team", yada yada yada.
At the same time Ferrell's character gets a taste for winning, he also develops a taste for coffee. I guess being the owner of a vitamin store, he's used to drinking herbal tea. But this is something of a narrative crutch - it means that his overly competitive spirit could be blamed on the caffeine, and not some fault that's developed in his personality. No, that would take longer to explain, and would get into all kinds of Freudian issues over the relationship between fathers and sons...
Phil's father, Buck Weston, is clearly a bastard - one who had to beat his son at every game they played, and we see how this has, over time, turned Phil into an insecure doormat. Phil manages to bring himself back from the brink before he treats his son the same way - but the change would have been more sincere if it truly came from the heart, and BOTH characters actually learned the error of their ways. See "Run Fatboy Run", and also "The Rookie" for better ways to accomplish this within the framework of a story.
My own father liked to beat me in board games, particularly "Monopoly". He never held back, and you know what? It made me a better player (though I still lose often to my wife) and when I finally learned how to beat him, he lost his interest in the game. But I think in general this film is somewhat disjointed, without a clear message - (competition = good? competition = bad? coffee = good? evil?) yeah, it's a film for kids, but that's no excuse.
I just don't see why Phil Weston has to be either a spineless jellyfish, or a killer shark, and there's no happy medium...I suppose there's some redemption in the end, but for me it came too little, too late.
Also starring Kate Walsh, Mike Ditka, Rachael Harris, Laura Kightlinger, with cameos from character actors Peter Jason, Scott Adsit, Jarrad Paul, Matt Winston, and David Bowe ("UHF")
RATING: 5 out of 10 cleats
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