Review: "Semi-Pro"

Unless you’re cozying up for a viewing of Grumpy Old Men, one of the last things you want the audience to think during a comedy is: “God, these guys look too old for this.” The scattered close-ups in Semi-Pro reveal subtle wrinkles on Will Ferrell’s face and Woody Harrelson’s inability to focus. If only this were a joke the film were in on. Rather, Semi-Pro is the rare R-rated comedy that doesn’t take advantage of its R rating and tries to inject the comedy with moments of serious drama. Needless to say, the film is far from a slam dunk.

Where Blades of Glory and Talladega Nights aimed for adequacy and succeeded with gags that worked more than not, Semi-Pro aims for…well, I’m not sure what the hell it’s aiming for, other than moments of 1970s satire. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, owner/coach/player for the ABA team Flint Tropics. (Yes, he is a lovably overconfident hero who constantly who vocalizes every random thought. How did you know?) In order for the team to be absorbed into the NBA, Moon has to get his team to fourth place and get more butts in his seats.

Now, this all seems like fairly innocuous fun, right? The set-up isn’t the problem, here; it’s the unprofessional direction of Kent Alterman, a first time director who never reigns in his stars—Ferrell and his buddies talk way too much for way too long about nothing. When Will Arnett begins to get on your nerves, there’s a serious problem. A number of scenes, most notably a poker night scene with an “unloaded” gun, go on for about three minutes longer than they need to; they try to squeeze every bit of humor out of each set-up, but when your stars look like their struggling to come up with some C-level improv, that’s when you yell “Cut!” (The poker scene, by the way, has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot.)

Beyond being unfunny and poorly constructed, there’s an inexplicable subplot in which Woody Harrelson’s Ed Monix returns to Flint to get back together with an old girlfriend. It’s, for some reason, done (mostly) seriously. It not only doesn’t fit in the movie, it’s underwritten and off-putting. I hope Maura Tierney, who should really be above this by now, bought something really pretty with her paycheck.

The film is also vaguely misogynistic (but in a winking, making fun of the 70s way) and subtly racist (in an unfunny modern way), but it’s the comic laziness that feels like its greatest sin. Why should Ferrell’s website be broadcasting amateur videos that offer infinitely more laughs per minute than this $12-a-ticket dreck?