It’s 1976 and Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) owns – & coaches, & plays in – an underachieving basketball team, in a second string league that is about to be consumed by the NBA. The arrival on the scene of former NBA bench warmer Ed Monix (Woody Harrelson, playing it completely straight and quite possibly making the movie because of it), traded for a washing machine, changes the balance of play.
You see, Monix knows how to play the game, he wrests coaching duties from Moon – who is more interested in dressing his team up as sparkly flamingoes and seahorses and practicing choreography than basketball – and teaches the team how to win.
Much better than I expected – funny all the way through, but with a liberal sprinkling of genius tossed around the place for good measure. The kitchen scene with the Monix fan (and his wife – actress Maura Tierney, who you and I will know best from ER) was dirtylarious. Licking my sexy was sexylarious. And the Russian Roulette scene was cringilarious. (“Hey! I did get shot!”)
If you’re in the mood to laugh your fine arse off, and aren’t automatically turned off by the merest through of Will Ferrell, you should go along to your local and check this one out.
IT’S LIKE THE TITANIC BUT FULL OF BEARS!!!