Semi-Pro

Will Ferrell, he got game. But his impressive winning streak could be petering out if this lukewarm basketball comedy is all he has left in the tank.

He plays 70s one-hit wonder Jackie Moon. His disco-funk anthem "Love Me Sexy" was such a hit it enabled him to buy his own basketball team, the Flint Tropics. Not only is he the owner, he's also the team's power forward - just one of the reasons they're firmly in last spot in the amateur American Basketball Association standings.

When the ABA announces it is going to dissolve, allowing the top four teams to merge with the professional NBA league, Jackie is convinced the Tropics can make it to the big time. With his gift for promotion (Free Corndog Night!) and motivational coaching skills, how can they fail? All that remains is to win their last dozen games and claim fourth spot�

It doesn't really matter that this is Ferrell's fourth sports movie in as many years, and that he's essentially playing the same cocky ignoramus in all of them� None of this would matter if the movie delivered more laughs.

Unfortunately after a fairly amusing opening it takes a wrong turn with the introduction of Woody Harrelson's washed up ex-Celtics player, Monix. Monix isn't an uninteresting character. In a sense, he's too interesting, because he hijacks the second half and pulls it in the direction of a more conventional (but far too cursory) underdog sports story.

Woody Harrelson has comedy chops and he can shoot a few hoops, as he showed in the terrific White Men Can't Jump, but he seems to be in a different film from Farrell, whose instincts are more outrageous and off-the-wall. We get some of that here - with a wrestling bout with a bear, for instance, or in a scene involving a supposedly empty revolver - but this wackiness sits uncomfortably beside Monix's attempts to reclaim his pride and his ex-wife (Maura Tierney).

Ferrell has done his most inspired work in collaboration with writer-director Adam McKay (Anchorman; Talledega Nights), and the good news is they have another movie due out later in the year, Step Brothers. But McKay has no involvement with Semi-Pro, which is written by Scot Armstrong (Road Trip; Starsky & Hutch) and directed by Kent Alterman, a producer on Elf who hasn't called the shots before. His inexperience shows. The movie never settles into a groove or builds any momentum.

Third billed Andre Benjamin (as "Coffee Black") shows off a mean Afro and a cool dribble but otherwise has precious little to do. Will Arnett and Andrew Daly are good value as the Tropics' dissolute and square sportscasters, but we're not exactly breaking new ground here. Having seen Farrell do NASCAR and ice-skating, it's easy to say what's missing. The film could have used a villain. At the very least, it needs more on-court comedy.

When all is said and done Semi-Pro still has enough laughs to make it worth a rental, but it's no slam dunk, not by a long chalk.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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