Champions (12A)

Minor league basketball coach Marcus Marakovich is fired from the Iowa Stallions after an altercation with head coach Phil Peretti. Soon after, Marcus drives home under the influence of alcohol and collides with a stationary police car. Judge Menendez sentences him to 90 days' community service teaching basketball to adults with intellectual disabilities at the Capitol East Recreation Centre managed by Julio.

LondonNet Film Review

Champions (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

Thirty years after Woody Harrelson hustled on a basketball court in White Men Can’t Jump, the Texas-born actor shoots hoops and scores generous laughs in director Bobby Farrelly’s English language remake of the award-winning 2018 Spanish sports comedy Campeones. Screenwriter Mark Rizzo retains the dramatic arc of the original to challenge discriminatory attitudes head-on but relocates the heartwarming sentiment to snow-laden Iowa replete with an exuberant supporting cast, many of whom make their feature film debuts. Chumbawamba’s rabble-rousing 1997 anthem Tubthumping, with its defiant chorus (“I get knocked down but I get up again/You’re never gonna keep me down!”), is a fitting musical motif for this empowering sermon about never judging a person by perceived physical or intellectual limitations…

Characters in Rizzo’s script prove doubters wrong, often accompanied by a zinging one-liner. Harrelson trades on his inherent charm to traverse a predictable path from brash, politically incorrect knucklehead to passionate ally, sparking molten screen chemistry with Kaitlin Olson as a spunky love interest who refuses to let any man have the last word or dictate her destiny. Unquestionably, she is one of the film’s MVPs along with scene stealer Madison Tevlin as the team’s sole female player, who is asked to assess the attractiveness of Harrelson’s coach. “You’re no McConaughey,” she sassily responds. Slam dunk.

Minor league basketball coach Marcus Marakovich (Harrelson) dreams of promotion to the NBA but his lofty ambitions are dealt a blow when he is fired from the Iowa Stallions after an altercation with head coach Phil Peretti (Ernie Hudson). Soon after, Marcus drives home under the influence of alcohol and collides with a stationary police car. Judge Menendez (Alexandra Castillo) sentences him to 90 days’ community service teaching basketball to adults with intellectual disabilities at the Capitol East Recreation Centre managed by Julio (Cheech Marin).

Marcus is painfully close-minded and intolerant of a ragtag team comprising Arthur (Alex Hintz), Darius (Joshua Felder), Blair (Tom Sinclair), Benny (James Day Keith), Cody (Ashton Gunning), Cosentino (Madison Tevlin), Craig (Matthew von der Ahe), Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), Marlon (Casey Metcalfe), Showtime (Bradley Edens) and Sonny (Matt Cook). The players gradually coalesce and Johnny introduces coach to his actress sister Alex (Olson), who turns out to be the one-night stand that recently exited Marcus’s bedroom with the pithy parting words, “You were fun… and sometimes that’s all a woman can wish for.” Three-pointer.

Champions is an unabashed crowd pleaser with a strong central message of equality and inclusivity that always bears repeating. Harrelson is the butt of jokes while his fallen hero acquires some long overdue learning about empathy and understanding and the tone noticeably sweetens as his neanderthal evolves into a mouthpiece for participation without prejudice. Farrelly double dribbles between humour and heart-tugging emotion, pandering to genre tropes without divorcing himself entirely from reality.

– Jo Planter