The year is 1976, and Jackie Moon (Ferrell) is the owner/coach/star player of the Flint Tropics. Beset by financial difficulties, low audience attendance and an abysmal record, the Tropics are the laughingstock of the American Basketball Association. The team’s situation is made even more desperate when word comes down the pipe that the ABA is set to be absorbed into the National Basketball Association. The catch is that the NBA will only be taking the top-four ranked teams; the rest will be forced to fold.

The stage is thus set for Moon and company’s valiant attempts to move from last place to at least fourth, by hook or by crook. As is typical for these types of films, the outcome is pretty much a forgone conclusion; there hasn’t been a sports picture where the main character actually lost since the original Rocky.

That’s not really an issue, though, since no one goes to see a Will Ferrell movie for pathos anyway. People go see his pictures because he’s a funny guy.

Ferrell has made a career out of playing the lovable oaf, and he’s pretty much playing to type here. Not that’s necessarily a bad thing, mind you. It’s hard not to smile at his antics as he struts around onscreen in his ridiculous afro, playing up the abundant clichés of the 1970s for all they’re worth. It doesn’t matter that he’s playing the umpteenth permutation of the same character that he’s been rehashing since his days on Saturday Night Live; he’s just such a goofball that you can’t help but like him.

The rest of the cast doesn’t fare quite as well, however. Woody Harrelson and Andre Benjamin turn in competent turns as the Tropics’ star players, but they end up doing little more than providing sounding boards for Ferrell’s one-liners. Will Arnett is amusing as the team’s foulmouthed alcoholic announcer, but he’s the only real standout.

The problem doesn’t lie as much with the actors’ performances as it does with the film’s writing. No one is going to make the argument that the material isn’t funny; it’s just that there’s far too little of it that’s laugh-out-loud funny. In the end we’re left with an amusing diversion that, like the American Basketball Association itself, will probably quickly be forgotten. As a film, Semi-Pro isn’t a benchwarmer, but it certainly hasn’t secured itself a place on the starting five either.

Jake S. Allen

Link(s) of interest:
1) Visit the film’s official website
2) Look up show times for this movie at a theater near you