FILM REVIEW: "Champions" is standard American sports movie fare saved by a great cast
Inspired by the incredible story (and Spanish film Campeones) of a Spanish basketball team of intellectually disabled players winning 12 Championships in 15 years, Champions is a classically set-up heart-warming sports movie.
At the beginning of the film, Marcus (Woody Harrelson) is brash, arrogant and entitled; squandering his skills and exploiting his friendships to make his way up the big leagues to the NBA. After an angry encounter with his head coach during a game, he drunkenly hits a police car while driving and is fired shortly thereafter. Court-ordered to use his G-league basketball coaching skills to coach The Friends, a team of players with intellectual disabilities, for 90 days, Marcus is extremely reluctant, but forced to make the most of the situation.
The exposition and stories of The Friends range widely, and the best bits of the film are the ones that focus on their relationships, friendships and hardships. The second third of the film really digs deep into some personal stories and relationships of the characters, all so that Marcus can finally realise that his gig is of more importance than he thinks. Bobby Farrelly’s direction is clear but unsubtle, the heartwarming and funny moments are unfortunately mixed with a couple moments of ‘people with disabilities sure say funny things’, which left an odd taste in the mouth, along with some extremely over-the-top exploitation of Benny (James Day Keith) by his restauranter boss.
Champions doesn’t really diverge from the classic American sports movie formula- so don’t expect anything exceptional there from the script or plot, but what the movie lacks originality, it makes up for with a hugely talented cast of actors for The Friends. Cosentina (Madison Tevlin) and Johnny (Kevin Iannucci) in particular come across fantastically on screen with great heart and comedic timing.
Woody Harrelson plays his bad-coach-gone-good-guy reasonably well, but his Act I character is hammed up to a ridiculous degree, with arrogance and political incorrectness abound. The dialogue in a couple of scenes between him and his coaching friends (Ernie Hudson and Matt Cook) is stilted to say the least, adding very little gravitas to the situations when it felt like they were pausing and waiting for each others’ lines to deliver the next basketball cliché.
Kaitlin Olson (of Always Sunny fame) plays the initially begrudging love interest, and gets some great moments with her strange job, and her love towards her brother Johnny. Her delicate situation being her brother’s carer whilst also trying to live her life to the fullest is one of the standout moments of the film.
While it is great that films such as Champions exist to spread the message of equality, compassion and love to people of all backgrounds, unfortunately, the final product is a paint-by-numbers, rags-to-riches, extremely Americanized sports film, only buoyed up by its fantastic cast. Maybe it might be worth giving Campeones a go instead!
