Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell), a one hit wonder in the pop music genre, retires from his singing career and purchases an ABA team called the Flint Tropics. He deems himself owner, coach, and player. (Power forward if you will) Jackie’s life has seem to have wandered off kilter as his team is nearly bankrupt and they are in last place in the league. When news arrives that the league is being dissolved and only four teams will be put in the NBA Jackie is ecstatic and he and the other owners agree it will be the top four teams. It becomes Jackie’s goal to save his financial future and inspire his teams survival to make it to fourth place. He brings an aging former pro who happens to be a raging alcoholic to the team named Monix (Woody Harrelson), who eventually teaches the guys how to play as a team.
Semi-Pro was a success because it ignored what it’s fledgling comedy’s have set as precedent to succeed in the past five years. It went right ahead and made it’s own new and improved version of Slapshot via the form of basketball. There was not a solitary moment that this film took itself seriously. It was a raw and simplistic comedy feeding off what has become a very typical story-line, the underdogs that start off as a losing team, learn to be great and win the championship. In films like these the first portion is spent with hilarious gut wrenching jokes, but the second half usually develops some sort of dramatic twist as the characters get serious to win. And of course, they usually do. Semi-Pro never tries to win, in fact all they desire is to come in fourth place and no longer than five possibly ten minutes is spent on them “becoming” a team, and even 60% of them learning to play and getting good is still shoving in any moment of humour possible. The film also didn’t feel it needed any unnecessary antagonists to fight, as something of that nature would have stolen away from more time to make us laugh, and that seemed to be the goal and success of Semi-Pro. It scored again and again making laugh out loud hysterics.
The pureness of this comedy, being exactly what it was and trying to be nothing else allowed us to engage in whatever ridiculous scheme or idea or event that occurred, and suspension of disbelief was an unnecessary factor.
To take anything about Will Ferrell and his crew seriously in this film would be to hate it. This will be a film that will carry on some of the most ultimate one-liners in ages, and most of which were delivered by the dim-witted character Jackie Moon, who’s heart and ideas were as big as his Afro.
Semi-Pro also ignored the typical PG-13 comedy and went for a straight “R” rating, mostly just for foul language, which when used in the right context is absolutely hilarious, particularly the scene where Jackie yells at the bear and says, “F**k this s**t.”
Semi-Pro never tried to be anything but what it was, which was an absolutely silly movie with a paper thin plot that existed for pure entertainment and laugh meter. It’s been a long time since I laughed so hard at a movie and it was refreshing to see Will Ferrell in a role that is perfect for him, probably one of my favorite films of his, if not my favorite. Semi-Pro was a winner even in defeat. Three and a Half out of Four Stars.
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