‘I stopped listening after I heard that I was right…’
I think Champions might be the most predictable film ever made. From the moment that Woody Harrelson’s irritable and emotionally detached basketball coach is court-ordered to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities, it is clear as crystal what will happen next. The team will teach the coach more than the coach teaches the team. There will be emotional growth. Our protagonist will become romantically involved with a relative of one of his players. Director Bobby Farrelly, working without his brother Peter for the first time, never once strays from the Mighty Ducks playbook. And yet…
So, Harrelson is the coach. Kaitlin Olsen is the love interest. Ernie Hudson and Cheech Marin the old hands. The team is made up of actors who are all intellectually disabled in some way which is, of course, the only sensible way to go with this storyline and this also provides an emotional resonance and poignancy that otherwise would be missing. Kevin Iannucci has all the best lines as Johnny but Madison Tevlin steals the show as the inscrutable and fearless talisman Consentino. Harrelson has a lot of fun. The script is heartwarming and funny. And despite the complete lack of any kind of innovation it’s hard not to get wrapped up in this underdog story.
That being said, unlike many other inspirational sports films, this one will not endure. Nobody will remember this movie in a month’s time because the script is just too cliche, the plotting is too predictable, the story beats as inevitable as the tides. For fans of the genre, there is a lot here to enjoy, but overall Champions is a pale imitation of much better films that have come before it.