Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Woody Harrelson, Kevin Iannucci, Madison Tevlin, Joshua Felder, Kaitlin Olson, Ernie Hudson, Cheech Marin
Intro:
It may not be a slam dunk, but it scores more than enough lay-ups to get on the board.
Even though they’re now working separately, the Farrelly brothers have maintained their particular brand of neurodivergence-ally crass comedy. While Peter has been trying to apply that level of empathy to other social issues with mixed results (racism in Green Book, war in The Greatest Beer Run Ever), Bobby’s solo debut shows him tapping more directly into that well.
Remaking the 2018 Spanish film of the same name, his and writer Mark Rizzo’s depiction of a self-seeking basketball coach (Woody Harrelson’s Marcus) and his legally-mandated journey from outsider to ally, does right by the tried-and-true standards of the inspirational sports movie.
Not that this is explicitly just about Marcus. His involvement in the plot is mainly to get him out of his own egotistical headspace, with the Friends, his team made up of players with learning disabilities, taking their deserved place at the front. The actors do really well with their roles: from Kevin Iannucci’s warm and friendly Johnny, to Madison Tevlin’s endearing servings of sass as Consentino, to Joshua Felder as Darius getting more laughs with a single-word rejection of Marcus than a lot of modern comedies can squeeze out of several minutes’ worth of improv. While some of the team get a bit left behind as far as memorable characterisation goes, what we do get helps to establish them not as labels but as people first and foremost, with their own lives and personalities.
Rest assured, though, the film knows its stuff when it comes to the reality of living with disability. It may lampshade its own precarious position as a story meant to ‘inspire’ neurotypicals, with an in-film bit of questioning about Marcus’ own motivations, but the script proves lucid in depicting the lived-in disabled experience. Rather than being brave simply for living with their conditions, the Friends are shown to be brave for not letting the nonsense of the abled consensus get in the way of them living their best lives. From direct prejudice like being called slurs, to societal exploitation, to the more casual condescension and overprotective attachment from ‘well-meaning’ NTs, the script does justice to the social model of disability.
Of course, much like with Peter Farrelly’s more socially conscious works, Bobby delivers in equally direct fashion. It’s mixed in with enough gross-out gags of late-‘90s rom-com past and a wedged-in romantic subplot between Marcus and the admittedly-delightful Kaitlin Olson as Alex (although, in the film’s defence, this subplot is carried over from the original film) to assure mainstream audiences that, don’t worry, this isn’t too subversive. Same goes for the adherence to sports movie cliches, sometimes at the expense of the film’s own narrative cohesion, along with the IV infusion of sentimental treacle that is the soundtrack. Michael Franti is a long way away from his Beatnigs days.
Even through the all-too-familiar broadness of the comedy (which still hits more times than not) and the handful of true contrivances, Champions works because it is emphatically about its main cast of relatable and lovable characters living with disability, rather than merely being a voyeuristic exercise through a ‘normal’ point-of-view. It has its moments of cringe, but it earns its stripes as ally cinema by forgoing the typical inspiration porn impulses and speaking disabled truth to power. It may not be a slam dunk, but it scores more than enough lay-ups to get on the board.
