Semi-Pro

Semi-Pro

Directed by Kent Alterman (R)

Will Ferrell attempts to save an American Basketball Association franchise.

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Semi-Pro “misses the hoop, the backboard, and the point,” said Kyle Smith in the New York Post. In this spoof of 1970s basketball, Will Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder who uses his music royalties to buy a struggling franchise in the doomed American Basketball Association, the Flint Tropics. As the team’s player/coach/promoter—basically Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy “with a ’fro”—Ferrell follows one ludicrous joke with another. He tries to “strangle the laughs” out of such low concepts as wrestling a grizzly, but eventually drops the ball. Semi-Pro “is a mess, but it’s a likable one,” said Kirk Honeycutt in The Hollywood Reporter. While screenwriter Scot Armstrong fared better with Old School, he sustains this lowbrow comedy by capturing the quirks of the ’70s and the underdog spirit of the ABA. The film “looks, sounds, and feels like something preserved in a time capsule from the polyester era,” said Joe Leydon in Variety. Ferrell puts on the “full-court press” by not holding back, and together with team players Will Arnett, Andy Richter, and Woody Harrelson, he scores just enough laughs.