Champions Review

Based on a Spanish film, Champions is a sports comedy-drama from one half of the Farrelly Brothers.

Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) is a basketball coach who is tactically brilliant but with poor man-management skills. He gets fired from his job with the Iowa Stallions after getting into a fight with his boss and things become worse for him after a drink-driving incident. Marcus is sentenced to 90 days of community service where he must train a team of players with learning disabilities. Despite his initial reluctance Marcus gets close to his new team and his connection with them could lead to sporting and personal redemption.

Film fans may go into Champions with some trepidation since it was an American remake that was directed by a man who helped make Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary and Shallow Hal. Those were broad comedies that can be seen as insensitive by modern audiences. However, these worries were unfounded as it was a charming little film with a lot of heart.

Where Champions succeeded was with its characters, their relationships, and some well-executed comedy. And that’s all this sort of film needed to be. Marcus had a standard character journey since he didn’t want to coach the special needs team and harboured ambition to coach in the NBA, but his new team gave Marcus what he needs. Ernie Hudson’s character even set up Marcus’ character arc early in the film when he baited out his assistant. The plot was similar to The Mighty Ducks where a lawyer was forced to coach a youth ice hockey as community service.

Marcus grew close to his team as the season progressed. He took an interest in their lives, like Benny (James Day Keith) who had an unsympathetic boss, and Johnny (Kevin Iannucci) having a love for animals. It did help that Marcus had a spicy relationship with Johnny’s sister, Alex (Kaitlin Olson). There was comradery between Marcus and the team. A fun little moment was when Marcus and the Friends pleaded with Alex to be their driver for away games. A funny yet sweet scene was when Marcus was able to get Johnny to shower by using Johnny’s love for animals.

The risk of a film like Champions was looking like it was making fun of the disabled. Fortunately, Champions avoids this. The Friends weren’t figures of fun or mockery. No jokes were made at the expense of their disabilities. They were a likeable bunch who cared for each other. My favourite was Consentino (Madison Tevlin) since she was a ball buster. Some of the characters were better defined than others. Benny, Johnny, and Darius (Joshua Felder) were given subplots and emotional moments, whilst others were just one-note character traits, i.e. Marlon (Casey Metcalfe) and Showtime (Bradley Edens).

Champions had been advertised as being directed by Bobby Farrelly and had Pitch Perfect’s producers. This meant that there were jokes for a broad audience. Some were cruder moments of humour. Because of this some of the jokes were hit-and-miss. Luckily there were more hits than misses.

The biggest issue with Champions was being baggy. It had a run time of two hours and it was felt. The film felt the need to extend itself with many montages with pop songs playing over them. The screenplay had to use the breakup storyline twice which just seemed lazy.

Champions have a story that has been done many times before, but it shows that this is fine if it is well made. The filmmakers made sure that the sweet and well-meaning film was enjoyable to watch.