Bovie Movie

40 years ago, Don Haskins went on the recruiting trail to find the best talent in the land, black or white. 7 blacks and 5 whites made up the legendary 1965-66 Texas Western Miners. They were mocked and ridiculed for their showboating and flaunting of black players on the court. Yet, in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Haskins and his Miners came together as a team united to reach the National Championship game against powerhouse Kentucky.

This stale and hackneyed sports comedy about a bunch of has-beens and no-hopers replacing striking professional American football players has quite an impressive cast for its type, boasting the likes of Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, Rhys Ifans and Jon Favreau. While it has some funny touches, such as the suggestive routines of the cheerleaders that distract the opposition, all the characters are purely one-dimensional, with even Hackman failing to achieve anything with his veteran coach role. Although the numerous passes and touchdowns are competently filmed, there’s precious little excitement generated, since we care little about those on the pitch. 

This rom-com from the Working Tittle production line follows the same likeable lines as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Paul Bettany takes on the role of fading British tennis player Peter Colt, who’s facing his last Wimbledon but gets fuel-injected when he falls for US tennis prodigy Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst). Richard Loncraine’s movie is great on the loser mentality of British sport, and the actual matches are thrillingly souped-up by some decent CGI effects (as well as the pithy punditry of John McEnroe and Chris Evert). However, away from tennis, Wimbledon doesn’t really nail either the comedic or romantic spots. It’s amusing rather than hilarious, sweet as opposed to heartfelt — perhaps the smarts and sparkle of a Richard Curtis screenplay would have helped here. Still, Bettany and Dunst do the diffident Brit-meets-brash Yank relationship with appealing charm and, like a certain plucky player from these shores, the whole thing bumbles along with amiable predictability. 

American football coach Chuck Dichter has worked wonders with the Buffalo Bills, and is even confident to crown his career with a Super Bowl victory, but before the play-offs an oyster food-poisoning wipes out his first team for a month. Dan Heller, an insurance salesman and former college quarterback, who was hired -relactantly, but his wife twisted his arm- just for practice, now has to captain and train a bunch of rookies and old-timers against the hardest adversaries. Dichter decides to sign up triple Super Bowl-winner Tommy Baker in Dan’s place…

Director Barry W Blaustein’s second feature after his fascinating 1999 wrestling documentary, Beyond the Mat, is again set in the world of sport, only this time it’s a politically incorrect comedy set at the Special Olympics. Jackass alumnus Johnny Knoxville stars as Steve Barker, an able-bodied guy who suddenly needs cash to arrange finger-reattachment surgery for a friend. Steve’s amoral gambler uncle (Brian Cox) suggests a ridiculous, only-in-the-movies solution: pose as a mentally disabled athlete to win at the Special Olympics and clean up at the bookies. The authentic competitors quickly see through Steve’s none-too-convincing schtick, but decide to help him train anyway, while he covertly courts a trusting volunteer (Katherine Heigl). Despite the set-up and the fact that it’s produced by gross-out kings the Farrelly brothers, the film offers a surprisingly tender portrait of the mentally disabled — many of the cast have real disabilities and confidently upstage their able-bodied colleagues. Perhaps it’s a fear of causing offence, combined with weak direction and Knoxville’s reliance on his patented style of physical comedy that prevent this from being funnier than it is. 

Stacy Peralta, who directed the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) that charted the rise of three young skateboarders in California in the early 1970s, provides the script for this dramatisation of the same events. It’s a quick-moving, good-looking movie and its strengths are very much thanks to Thirteen director Catherine Hardwicke, who utilises kinetic hand-held camerawork and rhythmic editing to give the film an intense immediacy. The weaknesses are all down to the script: the young heroes tread a well-worn path of tough childhoods, inspiring early successes and eventual heartache and betrayal, while trading dialogue such as “So, you’re like really famous now, huh?” However, the positives include the charismatic leads (with Heath Ledger delivering a broad and entertaining turn as skateboarding svengali Skip Engblom) and an outstanding soundtrack, as in the original documentary. 

Incredibly dumb but equally infectious, this comedy reunites Wedding Singer director Frank Coraci with his star Adam Sandler, who plays a lowly, put-upon dispenser of water to sweaty college footballers. One day, their abuse (this time about his beloved Cajun mum, Kathy Bates) is just too much and he strikes back by charging one of the players, so impressing the coach that he ends up on the team. If you like Dumb and Dumber (and some people do), you’ll love this equally inane stuff. It features great performances from Bates and The Fonz himself, Henry Winkler (as the bewildered coach), and Sandler puts his modest comedic talent to good use. 

Stan Ross was a baseball superstar who turned his back on the game years ago when he finally hit 3,000 hits. Years later, he’s now a successful, self-made entrepreneur whose many businesses revolve around his title: Mr. 3000. But a clerical error has proven that Stan is just short three hits of his spectacular hit record. Now, with time on his side and the potential to be inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Stan must return back to the game and get back his title. But things have changed with age, and as Stan finds out, it’s not too easy to get back into the game when he hasn’t played for years, and he’s nearing 50.

Heard the one about the orphan zebra who thinks he’s a racehorse and enters the Kentucky Open? No? Then take one unsophisticated Babe clone, add a dollop of Seabiscuit sentiment, stir in a positive message and you have Racing Stripes. Director Frederik Du Chau’s comedy uses the trick of live animals with CGI mouths to lip-synch the broad one-liners, but this yarn tries too hard to appeal to all members of the family. Some of the in-jokes will undoubtedly go over younger children’s heads (“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in”, hams Joe Pantoliano’s gangster pelican), while the toilet gags (courtesy of two horseflies) prove way too juvenile for adults. Although well served by its human actors (Bruce Greenwood, Hayden Panettiere and Wendie Malick) and voice cast (which features Dustin Hoffman, Frankie Muniz and Whoopi Goldberg), this remains a charmless, predictable and rather dated confection. 

This is one of those movies where the cast let you know that they had a whale of a time making the film; the trouble is that they pretty much leave the audience out of the fun. Will Ferrell, here looking for a big hit following the underwhelming box-office performances of Bewitched and The Producers, stars as the eponymous Nascar champion who is forced to take on his nemesis, gay French driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen). Director Adam McKay (Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy) and Ferrell apparently improvised a great deal of the screenplay and the result is sloppy and self-indulgent. They make the further mistake of weighing down what should be a featherlight movie with a lumpen “absent father” subplot and endless racing scenes. There’s the odd funny moment, but the film is finally undermined by a homophobic undertone, which wouldn’t be so irritating if the jokes it generated were at least mildly amusing.