What is it?
Woody Harrelson stars in the hilarious and heart-warming story of a former minor-league basketball coach who, after a series of missteps, is ordered by the court to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities. He soon realizes that despite his doubts, together, this team can go further than they ever imagined.
Directed by Bobby Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal, Me, Myself and Irene, There's Something About Mary) and starring Woody Harrelson (Zombieland, Now You See Me, The Hunger Games), Kaitlin Olson (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Miss Congeniality), Cheech Marin (Cheech and Chong, Nash Bridges), Matt Cook.
Quick Review
Champions hits all of the tropes of every sports movie ever made, from the gruff professional coach, forced to train a team of lower team full of misfits and take them all the way through to the championship game, where that coach learns more themselves than they could teach their new team. There's a point along the way where the coach "betrays" the team but it all comes together during the final match, and after a heartfelt and inspiring halftime speech the team come together to play the game for themselves, whether they win the championship or not.
Following this formula, Champions is very predictable but that didn't reduce my enjoyment of the movie because the rest of the cast is really hilarious. I could have done with the movie focusing far more on the special Olympics basketball team rather than Woody Harrelson's love life or want of coaching in the NBA. All that was typical and boring, but each of the members of the team just made the whole movie so totally enjoyable.
Kevin Iannucci is the stand out, and is really the heart of the film (even though it tries to focus on Woody and Kaitlen Olsen's relationship instead).
So while predictable and hitting every sports movie trope, this was overall a really enjoyable and entertaining movie, and as described by the official marketing, it is a really heartwarming movie.
See it or skip it?
See it.
Check out the Champions trailer below.
- Matt