Ferrell scores with
humorous ‘Semi-Pro’

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

By my unofficial calculation, Will Ferrell is about one movie away from becoming "that sports comedy guy." His choice of roles in his last few movies seems to go against the grain of what many actors fight — typecasting.
Yes he’s had a few other roles sprinkled in, but in the past few years, he has been a soccer dad in Kicking and Screaming, a racecar driver in Talladega Nights and a figure skater in Blades of Glory.
Now he’s lacing up his sneakers to play a basketball player in Semi-Pro.
Even though Semi-Pro is similar to his other movies, it still manages to be funny. There are a few memorable funny moments that I won’t rehash here, to not ruin them, but let’s just say that one of the more memorable involves Ferrell and a bear.
While I wouldn’t say Semi-Pro is the best comedy Ferrell has ever been in — that honor goes to Anchorman and Elf — Semi-Pro ranks near the top.
The mature humor from writer Scot Armstrong (also writer of the Farrelly brothers’ 2007 gross-out comedy The Heartbreak Kid) — lends itself to an R rating, making Semi-Pro different from Ferrell’s other more tame sports comedies.
In his first directorial effort, Ken Alterman does a good job of capturing the essence of the 1970s, complete with outrageous Afros, bell bottoms and disco music. According to published reports, Ferrell wanted to do this movie because he’s a big basketball fan. In fact, he’s a player in the NBA Entertainment League, among stars like Justin Timberlake and Adam Sandler.
Ferrell’s enthusiasm for basketball is obvious in Semi-Pro, which casts him as Jackie Moon. Thanks to Moon’s hit song called Love Me Sexy, he is able to buy the Flint (Michigan) Tropics, an American Basketball Association (ABA) team. That makes Moon the owner, player and coach of the Tropics, the worst team in the league.
During a meeting with ABA team owners, Moon finds out that the league is disbanding and that only the top four teams (which also must have decent attendance records) will move to the NBA.
Ferrell doesn’t want to lose his team of losers, so he trades the team’s washing machine for Monix (Woody Harrelson), an aging, former championship-winning player in the NBA, in an effort to at least get the last spot among the top four teams. The team also has Clarence "Coffee" Black (Andre Benjamin, also known as Andre 3000 from the rap group Outkast). Coffee is the player on the team with the most potential to reach the NBA.
Lots of crazy stunts follow as Moon tries to get fans to attend Tropic games. He even goes as far as to sit everyone on the same side of the arena to make it look like there’s a full house on television.
The only problem I had with the movie was the out-of-place side story involving Monix and his either ex-girlfriend or ex-wife (it’s never really established who she is or how she knows Monix). However, when Monix gets traded to Flint, he is at her doorstep talking about the past and wanting to work things out, even though she has a boyfriend or husband (again, it’s not clear).
Overall, Semi-Pro is an entertaining, 90-minute movie with the jokes coming fast and furious. It is not quite a slam dunk, but it definitely scores some laughs and memorable moments. ••
Movie Grade: B+