Semi-Pro

DVD review A film so divorced from reality of any kind that it is difficult to find a reason to laugh at much of anything that goes on.

Will Ferrell has proven himself an engaging character and comic actor, so it is particularly dismaying to watch him slink towards an Eddie Murphy-like irrelevance in terms of big-screen comedy. In Semi-Pro, he hits rock-bottom. The film tells what could have been an entertaining story of the American Basketball Association (ABA), a rival start-up to the NBA in the Sixties and Seventies, as it struggles with small crowds, questionable talent and too little money. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit singer who plops his money into a rag-tag team based in the rust-belt city of Flint, Michigan, a blue collar town which turns out by the dozen for basketball games. Woody Harrelson is Monix, the player who arrives to save the day while Andre Benjamin (of Outkast) plays the team's star. Semi-Pro turns into a comedy sketch that goes on too long, depending almost entirely on Ferrell dressing up in outlandish costumes and shouting obscenities at inappropriate times for its humour. The movie is so divorced from reality of any kind that it is difficult to find a reason to laugh at much of anything that goes on, let alone be interested in it. About the only thing remarkable about the dvd, in fact, is that even the special features are boring.