Champions: The Road to Meh is Paved With Good Intentions
By Chris Knight
Rating: C-minus
We critics can be a grumpy bunch. And so, while it may be almost impossible to hate the well-meaning, audience-pleasing charm-fest that is Champions, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Even a heart-warming story can leave you cold if it’s poorly told.
The film’s pedigree is promising. It’s a remake of Campeones, which was Spain’s highest grossing domestic film of 2018 and was submitted to the Oscars that year in what is now the Best International Feature category.
Champions’ “The Friends,” and their coach Marcus (Woody Harrelson)
It was directed by Bobby Farrelly, who has previously threaded the needle of disability comedy with Me, Myself and Irene (dissociative identity disorder), Stuck on You (conjoined twins) and whatever was going on with Jack Black in Shallow Hal.
And it stars Woody Harrelson, who tends to play conflicted bad guys with unexpected reserves of kindness – see Zombieland, The Man from Toronto and, depending on your political leanings, LBJ.
Harrelson stars as Marcus, a minor-league assistant basketball coach who is let go after an on-court tussle with his boss (Ernie Hudson). Then he’s arrested for driving while intoxicated, and given a sentence of 90 days’ community service, coaching a basketball team whose players all have intellectual disabilities.
From this point on, the film’s narrative arc is as calculated and predictable as a ball in flight. Marcus, who uses the R-word in court when describing the players, and who thinks Down syndrome can be “caught,” slowly comes to realize that the people he’s coaching are just that – people.
What’s more, some of them are pretty good athletes.
He doesn’t make this journey of discovery all on his own, mind you. Helping out from the bench is Julio (Cheech Marin), the manager of the local rec centre, who helpfully exposits every player’s backstory while the film shifts to B-roll footage of them engaging in their jobs, personal lives and hobbies.
Then there’s Alex (Kaitlin Olson), who is the sister of Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), one of the team members. She and Marcus have a one-night stand before he realizes her connection to the team, and spend the rest of the movie having sex and slowly falling in love, with predictable speed bumps and commitment issues along the way.
Finally, there’s the team, who go by the name The Friends. As in every sports movie since cinema learned to catch, they’re a bunch of loveable misfits who wind up teaching their coach far more than he could ever impart to them. And (again as in the Spanish original) they’re played by actors with Down syndrome, autism, etc.
The action is backed by a selection of toe-tapping nineties-and-oughts favourites including Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping, Hey Ya by Outkast, EMF’s Unbelievable and (older but so on point in a basketball movie) the century-old jazz standard Sweet Georgia Brown, now indelibly associated with the Harlem Globetrotters.
Harrelson looks game in the role, though he does tend to spend a little too much time sighing his lines rather than saying them. It’s a decent, ultimately forgettable performance in a film that needs to lose at least 20 minutes out of its two-hour running time.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that Champions is set in Des Moines, Iowa, with the climactic big game in Winnipeg, and the American players complaining that they’ll have to pack long underwear. But look at the credits and you’ll find that the whole shebang was actually shot in Winnipeg and nearby Selkirk. For all its good intentions and inclusive messaging, Champions turns out to be mildly ’Peggist. For shame.
Champions. Directed by Bobby Farrelly. Starring Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson and Kevin Iannucci. Opens in theatres Friday, March 10.