Semi-Pro

47

New Line Cinema (90 minutes)
and Kent Alterman
Will Ferrell , Woody Harrelson , Andre Benjamin , Maura Tierney , Will Arnett , Andy Richter , Rob Corddry , and DeRay Davis

Rating: R for language and some sexual content

Summary: Semi-Pro is an outrageous comedy set in 1976 against the backdrop of the maverick ABA--a fast-paced, wild and crazy basketball league that rivaled the NBA. It made a name for itself with such innovations as the three-point shot and slam-dunk contest. Will Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder who used the profits from the success of his chart-topping song "Love Me Sexy" to achieve his dream of owning a basketball team. But Moon's franchise, the Flint Michigan Tropics, is the worst team in the league and in danger of folding when the ABA announces its plans to merge with the NBA. If they want to survive, Jackie and the Tropics must now do the seemingly impossible--win. (New Line Cinema)

Michael Sragow
Baltimore Sun:
(75) Semi-Pro is so shabbily staged, shot and edited that it hardly ranks as a movie, much less a sports film, but hilarious people keep turning up in it.

Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor:
(75) None of Ferrell's movies have ever really done justice to the best of his "Saturday Night Live" work, but those of us who love his comedy have learned to take the good with the bad.

Chris Willard
Premiere:
(75) Ultimately, we don't purchase tickets to Will Ferrell movies for their sweeping romantic storylines, but because he makes us laugh. And Semi-Pro offers plenty of reasons to do so.

Matt Zoller Seitz
The New York Times:
(70) Semi-Pro finds the sweet spot between sports melodrama and parody, and hammers it for 90 diverting minutes.

Joe Leydon
Variety:
(70) Very much in the tradition of "Slap Shot," George Roy Hill's raucously funny and foul-mouthed 1977 laffer about the misadventures of a minor-league hockey team, Semi-Pro scores big laughs with the rowdy play-by-play of hard-luck hoopsters struggling for professional survival.

Ty Burr
Boston Globe:
(63) The problem with Semi-Pro is that it keeps forgetting it's a parody of sports movies; the final scenes are supposed to be uplifting (sort of) but they're not fooling anyone. The film's much better when it just lets the guys gas and sass each other.

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