Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1683 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-06-16
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

Synopsis
After lampooning the worlds of ice skating (BLADES OF GLORY) and NASCAR (TALLADEGA NIGHTS), Will Ferrell takes on a new sport with this comedy co-starring Woody Harrelson, Will Arnett, and Andre Benjamin. It's 1976, and Jackie Moon (Ferrell), the owner-coach-player of an American Basketball Association team, must turn his band of ballers from losers to winners.

Customer Reviews

So Seventies, so funny and a real gem surprisingly!!!
Now in my opinion Will Farrell is over exposed in movies. I can't recall one week at the cinema where Will Farrell has not starred in a film. Ok its great for him money-wise but its overkill. I therefore reluctantly sat down to watch this film and was so pleased i did. The action is fast and unlike most American films about their sports of baseball, Amercan football and basketball, you really do not need to have a knowledge of basketball to follow this story.

Its the usual formula, small town with rubbish team and owner who has no idea how to run affairs, then lo and behold their sign a player who in years previous was a star player and he has fallen on hard times. can they get to the play-offs and get promoted to the Major Leagues. yes its a well written formula and we have all seen it, but in this case the film rocks. Its hilarious watching the scams the owner (Will Farrell) has to get people through the turnstiles and, of course their team's star player is, you guessed it Will Farrell. Not because he is any good but rather he owns the team so he has to have the ball.

The film changes when the team know they could go out of business and the new star player Woody Harrelson, turns over a new leaf and starts coaching the team.

Its light- hearted and very funny in places and so 70's. Like watching the TV series of Starsky and Hutch at times.

I liked it and it is a real gem. If you are, like me fed up with then over-exposure of Will Farrell, please do not let that stop you watching this hilarious film.

You may love this sexy.......
This film is funnier than I thought it would be, but is not quite one of Ferrells best. I really enjoyed the 70's vibe, which they captured perfectly, and loved Ferrell and the cast mugging for all they were worth. Yes the plot is formulaic, sometimes stupid, and Maura Tierney is criminally under-used,but the film has a lot of heart, laughs at itself, is feel-good, and has enough laugh out loud moments to justify a night in watching it.
The theme tune is fantastic, too........!!

Disappointing and formulaic
I rented this movie because I love the comedies from Will Ferrel et al(Blades of Glory, Dodgeball etc), but I found Semi-Pro rather boring. Perhaps it's the story-line that's at fault here, after all, you cannot keep spinning the same old formulaic yarns and expecting audiences to find them funny, and this is exactly what Ferrel seems to have done. Basic scenario: Ferrel plays his usual over-the-top 1970s alpha male, Jackie Moon, who heads a failing Michigan basket-ball team, and employs an ex super-star player with a drink problem (Harrleson) to turn the team's fortunes aruond. So it's basically Dodgeball, but about basketball-and less funny.

To be fair to Ferrel, there are some really funny moments in the film, but it's as though he came up with the jokes first and then tried to fit them into a tried and tested plot, as the humour is quite random and ludicrous in some scenes. Woody Harrelson gives an interesting and amusing performance, but even he's not enough to bouy up the movie as a whole. I didn't really laugh until twenty minutes into the movie, and it's clear that Ferrel didn't put nearly so much effort into this as he did in Anchorman or Old School. I honestly think that even die-hard Will Ferrel fans will struggle to enjoy this movie- unfortunately for me, it was painfully 'same old'.