Yep, it’s a Happy Madison sports movie double feature today… because why not? Only, where Hustle was purely fiction, this is based on a true story involving NFL coach Sean Payton, while on suspension, coaching his son’s middle-school football team, the Liberty Christian Warriors (here called the Argyle Warriors). Unfortunately, that’s not the only major difference between the two, as the entertainment value here is much steeper.
For a start, the dialogue is built on a lot of insider jargon, which didn’t make for the most noob-friendly experience for me. Again, I admit that sports aren’t my thing, but a good film should be able to translate the mechanics of the sport in question to at least make it legible; hell, Hustle managed to do that just fine. Here, when it gets to the point of the kids on-screen remarking that they don’t understand the coach’s plays, it feels like an unintentional admission of guilt.
Then there’s the usual suspects of HM’s lower rungs to deal with, starting with Kevin James in one of his flattest performances yet as Sean Payton. While the script isn’t doing him any favours dramatically (more on that in a bit), he’s not doing much to try and make it palatable either. Then there’s Jackie Sandler showing up as Payton’s ex and currently married to Rob Schneider’s New Age caricature (between this and Father Of The Year, I’m not that comfortable with how much she’s getting passed around), neither of whom add much beyond annoyance, especially in the latter case. There’s also Taylor Lautner still desperately trying to be a real actor and fumbling it, and Gary Valentine (AKA Kevin James’ brother) rounds off the coach side of things as a day-drinking attempt to do what Chris Farley would’ve devoured back in the day.
So, the sports scene are pretty naff, and the actors are phoning it in (save for Isaiah Mustafa having all the fun as the coach for the rival team the Porcupines); is it a bad time to mention that the film strains to be funny on top of that? There’s a lot of ‘80s kids sports film revivalism going on here, with the lame catchphrases (I will die happy never hearing “ow, my butthole” again) and the character archetypes within the team, but it’s not even done competently. There’s even a set piece involving pretty much everyone on the Warriors’ team projectile vomiting, involving some of the worst CGI vomit I’ve ever seen on-film. Novelty store plastic puke would’ve been more convincing. And just in case this sounds a little too much like a certain scene from Triangle Of Sadness, know that this film also features a scene where Sean tries to convince a hotel employee to take a break in the pool, presented entirely without irony.
And speaking of being utterly clueless, I really have to question the idea to make the Sean Payton story into a movie in this fashion. The film actively brings in his real-life involvement with Bountygate, where he offered the New Orleans Saints bonus payments for taking out specific opposing players, and tries to wrap the whole thing up in a trite message about him accepting that winning isn’t everything. Where it gets odd is that the film, even though it’s been brought up, never ends up addressing any of it. When Smith as Sean is directly questioned about his involvement in Bountygate, he gives some premium weasel words to get out of saying much of anything about it, as if the filmmakers are sheepish about anything resembling endorsement of that behaviour. Y’know, like making an entire film about the man kinda-sorta-not-really being humbled by the experience.
I just don’t get why this was made, and I don’t mean that in the way I usually poke at non-Sandler Happy Madison productions. If this was just a generic Mighty Ducks rip-off, that’d be one thing, but because it’s explicitly trying to pull a pseudo-biopic in its highlighting of Sean Payton (right down to him cameoing as a janitor right at the end, just to aggrandise himself by proxy about how badly the Saints did with ‘him’ gone), there’s an unappealing bitterness to the whole thing. That it involves having to deal with Taylor Lautner and Rob Schneider once again floundering on-screen in all their scenes just makes this mess even more unpleasant to deal with.
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