Semi-Pro (2008)

"Definitely more than semi-funny.  Claudia Puig, USA Today
"Very much in the tradition of "Slap Shot"..."Semi-Pro" scores big laughs...  Joe Leydon, Variety
"...finds the sweet spot between sports melodrama and parody...  Matt Zoller Seitz, The New York Times
"...mixes the traditional rags-to-riches sports movie and the usual Ferrell farce...genuinely funny.  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"Whether he gets naked and shows his flabby parts or not, Will Ferrell makes me laugh.  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Editor's Note Over the course of a string of successful comedies that includes TALLADEGA NIGHTS and BLADES OF GLORY, Will Ferrel has perfected a type of swaggering, machismo-fueled character, heavy on ego and severely lacking in intellect of any kind. Typically set in the world of sports, these movies have allowed Ferrel free range to both mock and celebrate idiot masculinity. SEMI-PRO, Ferrell's homage to the wild, afro-picked splendor of the short-lived American Basketball Association, continues this trend, and finds him embodying yet another larger-than-life hunk a burnin' love in the form of Jackie Moon, R&B singer-turned-owner/player/coach of the hapless Flint, Michigan Tropics. As sports movies go, SEMI-PRO's story should be more than familiar to even the most casual fan. The Tropics are a lackluster franchise that place good times and flash over winning. However, when the league announces that they will be merging with the NBA and only taking the top four teams along, the Tropics buckle down and give true ballin' a shot. SEMI-PRO follows the comedic formula of other Ferrell movies and contains an equal amount of satire (tame-but-effective ?70s goofs), slapstick (on-court brawls, zany stunts), and surreal non-sequiturs (an improvised poker game provides one of the film's most deliciously bizarre scenes), but it's not exactly interchangeable with Ferrell's other movies. Though the actor cuts loose as Jackie Moon, the film is decidedly an ensemble picture, with Woody Harrelson providing the movie's true protagonist, in washed up former NBA player Monix, and Andre Benjamin offering a charming turn as flashy NBA wannabe Clarence "Coffee" Black. Perhaps most interestingly, however, is SEMI-PRO's surprising attention to detail, though the Flint Tropics are a fictional team, the real ABA was every bit as wacky, unhinged, and, yes, entertaining as SEMI-PRO itself.

	Andre Benjamin
	Andrew Daly
	Andy Richter
	David Koechner
	Kristen Wiig
	Maura Tierney
	Patti LaBelle
	Rob Corddry
	Tim Meadows
	Will Arnett
	Will Ferrell
	Woody Harrelson
	Clayton Hartley - Production Designer
	Debra Neil-Fisher - Editor
	Jim Gloster - Art Director
	Joshua Church - Producer
	Kent Alterman - Director
	Michael Aguilar - Executive Producer
	Scot Armstrong - Writer
	Shane Hurlbut - Cinematographer
	Theodore Shapiro - Original Music By
	Virginia L. Randolph - Art Director

USA Today
"As in ANCHORMAN, there are some ludicrous sight gags....The mid-'70s era is hilariously conveyed with terrible fashion choices, the most egregious of which are draped on Ferrell..." 03/01/2008

Rolling Stone
"Ferrell is a slam-dunk....SEMI-PRO has an R rating that liberates Ferrell from being family-friendly, as in a foulmouthed poker game that end in a Russian-roulette stunt out of THE DEER HUNTER." 03/20/2008 p.68

Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "SEMI-PRO tosses improvised skits around like comedy candy....The highpoint sees Ferrell wrestling a bear that escapes into a packed audience of sports fans..." 05/01/2008 p.50

Premiere
3 stars out of 4 -- "[F]irst-time director Kent Alterman relies on Ferrell's comedy chops and a strong supporting cast to create an engaging [film]..." 02/29/2008

ReelViews 6 of 10
This movie struggles for laughs, in part because the writing is lazy with too much of the humor being obvious and easily telegraphed, and in part because Semi-Pro is obsessed with being a sports film rather than merely parodying one. Admittedly, both approaches have been done so often that it's difficult to find a fresh angle, but there would seem to be more unplowed territor in the latter category than the former. Nevertheless, that's not where first-time director Kent Alterman and screenwriter Scot Armstrong take this movie. Instead of a satire, they give us a tired, tedious victory-for-the-underdog story, and the unevenness of Ferrell's comedy makes it less appealing...Semi-Pro does a solid job of recreating a pop culture vision of the 1970s. This may not have been how it actually was, but it's how movies and television remember it - brash, outrageous, and over-the-top...As a comedian, Will Ferrell is at his best when he's working with a funny screenplay. His seat-of-the-pants improvisation often comes across more as weird than hilarious...Although director Ken Alterman achieves a degree of moderation in this regard, the script is weak and it hampers Ferrell's ability to play someone who's more than the loud drunk at the bar. Jackie Moon crosses the line from funny to annoying and he's never sympathetic - merely pathetic. - James Berardinelli

The Village Voice 7 of 10
Semi-Pro's much better than Blades of Glory, which wasn't nearly as good as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which was a little better than Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which was almost as funny as Old School, which was better than everything else Will Ferrell had done up to that point--except maybe Dick, which nobody saw and even fewer remember. Seems this is what it's come down to with Ferrell: grading his movies in various shades of enh as each one blends into the next till they're all one giant gray blob of feh. Which sells short the semi-funny Semi-Pro--essentially Major League clad in 1970s short-shorts, topped with a few 'fros for fun...What at least distinguishes Semi-Pro from its predecessors (not only those starring Ferrell, but also such lesser lights as Dodgeball and Balls of Fury) is that it's a slightly darker movie--one made for grown-ups, hence the R rating. In one rather surprisingly tense scene set around a poker table, which begins with someone being called a "jive turkey" as opposed to the apparently more acceptable "cocksucker," a painfully prolonged Deer Hunter re-enactment breaks out. The audience half-expects someone to blow his head clean off--Jackie Moon, preferably. - Robert Wilonsky