Champions

I don’t have particular feelings on the Farrelly brothers one way or the other. I haven’t seen many of their films. I recall enjoying those I’ve seen, although none of them have I watched in the past 10 years. The ones I’ve missed don’t really grab me. Just not quite my type of humor.

Which is to say I only saw this because it was there. And it doesn’t have terrible reviews, merely middling ones.

Marcus (Woody Harrelson) aspires to be a pro basketball head coach, but is fired from his assistant coaching gig following a DUI. He’s also sentenced to community service coaching a basketball team made up of intellectually challenged people, The Friends. He’s got his work cut out for him as he tries to get them ready for the Special Olympics, meanwhile navigating improving himself.

If the premise sounds thin, it’s because it feels like a 2000s comedy in many ways, when that was enough.

Luckily, in other ways, it’s very much not a 2000s comedy. For example, the only people who refer to the team members as “retarded” are immediately punished for doing so. Progress!

The movie is trying to be inclusive. It’s heart is in the right place. Shortly after Marcus (and the audience) meets the team, we’re treated to a short little montage as the community center director Julio (Cheech Marin) tells Marcus who his players are. That is, they’re not wholly defined by their disability, and in fact are more fleshed out people. We see a range of disability and independence and personalities. Which is definitely a nice gesture in a mainstream comedy by one of the “old guard”.

But it still feels like at many points, we’re expected to be laughing at them. Some of that could just be Bobby Farrelly’s sense of humor being very centered around silliness and people acting in heightened ways. But it really doesn’t sit great when the movie frequently focuses on a player who only shoots backwards over his head, and celebrates each shot as a victory despite not even hitting the rim. This comes back as a plot point later, to make the point that winning isn’t everything, which is nice. But in the moment, this and a number of other things just feel…gross feels too strong, but gross. And as if to emphasize that it wasn’t just my read, an audience member near me laughed almost any time one of the intellectually disabled characters did or said anything slightly “wrong”.

This isn’t to say you can’t make a comedy with intellectually disabled characters; of course you can. Look at An Irish Goodbye, winner of this year’s Oscar for Best Live-Action Short. It’s just to say you must be mindful in order for it to work, and while, to its credit, Champions clearly tried, it still missed.

But most characters being intellectually disabled isn’t the whole film. What about the rest of it?

Well, you can predict the plot from the moment the movie tells you Marcus’ motivation and he loses his assistant coaching job. Woody Harrelson looks like he’s sleepwalking through the role. And it’s just not very funny (with one exception; we’ll get there). The basketball shown is…fine. But this is ultimately a movie about and for Marcus, so the team’s triumphs and defeats are only centered insofar as they impact him. The team members themselves are props by which Marcus can advance; with one notable exception and one minor one, they don’t have their own arcs or growth or desires. Their success largely serves for Marcus to prove himself and wash away his own sins.

What’s incredible about that is it’s lampshaded. A situation arises in which someone stands to gain from associating themselves with Marcus and his success with The Friends, and everyone says they’re just trying to whitewash their scandal with their feel-good story. Which is kinda the whole plot of the movie? I’m not sure if that was intentional, as nothing else really serves to reinforce the idea the movie knows. But it’s there, so do with it what you will.

There are two saving graces. For one, the ending is crafted to reinforce some of the themes it’s been trying to demonstrate, albeit sporadically and clunkily. But the other is Kaitlin Olson as Alex. She is an absolute delight, and by far the funniest part of the film. Her character is written very well, with lots of unexpected flourishes. And Olson absolutely lives this role. She’s quite possibly the most natural feeling presence in the whole movie. I’ve never gotten into It’s Always Sunny, but learning she’s been a main cast member since the beginning made a ton of sense.

Neither is enough to save this movie, although they at least give you something to look forward to.