Posted: 05/15/2005

Kicking and Screaming

(2005)

by Clint Fletcher

I’ve been deeply depressed as of late, my fellow fans. Not only is Paris Hilton still walking the Earth, but it seems that a deep, dark curse has been brought upon me and I don’t know how to reverse it. The curse is this: every film that I look forward to seeing ends up blowing, and every movie that I least expect to be good ends up great. Add Kicking and Screaming to the Top Ten Unexpected Shit List.

I know I know. Will Farrell is hot right now and everyone likes him and I will admit, he’s one funny mother fucker at times. But much like Anchorman, there are some times when I just don’t get his style of humor. His mannerisms and the way he delivers his jokes do pay off for the most part, but there’s still that lingering percentage of jokes in his films that are just downright random and bizarre. With Anchorman, he pulled it off because the concept was original. With Elf, he pulled it off by sticking to the script. But when you take his style of humor and mix it with the most cliche script imaginable, you get the disastrous Kicking and Screaming.

Farrell stars as Phil Weston, a man who has been perturbed all his life due to his lack of athletic ability and his dad’s “winning is everything” attitude (the burned out Robert Duvall). Once Phil discovers that his dad has traded his son from his championship winning soccer team, he decides to take over as coach for his son’s new losing team. Then he goes and recruits Mike Ditka (huh?) as his assistant coach, recruits some new Italian Stallions to lead the team, lifts everyone’s spirits and get this- they actually start winning games. I have to give props to the screenwriters for originality though. This is a brand new concept to movies today. I mean its not like this was used before in movies like The Mighty Ducks, Hoosiers, Cool Runnings, The Big Green, Coach Carter, D2: The Mighty Ducks, The Replacements, Wimbledon, Rookie of the Year, Major League, Major League 2, Little Big League, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Varsity Blues, The Sandlot, Friday Night Lights, Slap Shot, Baseketball, Bull Durham, Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V, Raging Bull, Hoop Dreams, Breaking Away, Chariots of Fire, Grand Prix, Tin Cup, Major League 3 or King Pin before. Then toward the end of the movie Phil becomes so obsessed with winning and beating his father that he just loses it altogether (as does the movie) and unfortunately not in a funny way.

What the fuck is going on with this flick? First off, the director doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. This Jesse Dylan dude is just plain lucky that his last two horribly directed films (American Wedding, How High) didn’t tank faster than the Titanic on a chill Winter evening. What? No Titanic jokes? Too soon? Piss off! Somebody buy this terd a tripod and teach him how to hold the camera still. And while you’re at it, show him the proper way to execute extreme close-ups. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Robert Duvall’s nose hairs unless that serves a purpose of the story. And speaking of purpose, there are tons of ridiculously stupid sub-plots in this puppy that not only don’t make sense, but there’s no resolution to them either. Nearly a quarter of the film is spent with a sub-plot involving Phil becoming addicted to coffee for the first time in his life. They keep showing him at the coffee shop and throwing fits when he doesn’t get to cut line or get the coffee that he wants. Who the fuck cares? Isn’t this movie about kids playing soccer? If you’re going to write a sucky cliche script then at least do it right. And on top of that the sub-plots weren’t even funny to begin with.

Another sub-plot that was never resolved is the hatred shared between Duvall and Mike Ditka. What the hell is behind this ongoing brawl and what the hell is Mike Ditka doing in a movie about soccer? Oh that’s right. Its supposed to be a joke. Oh, I get it now! “That’s the joke. He coaches football, not soccer!” You screenwriters are pretty funny! But more importantly, why did this movie blow? And what the hell is Mike Ditka doing in a movie, period? Sometimes you can just tell when a story has gone through too many rewrites- or in this case, a new person coming in to sit on the toilet and shit on the script below. I wonder if the head studio execs just give writers an office in the bathroom nowadays. Then they would just take a dump all day long while they’re writing. And its hard not to write what you’re actually doing while typing. Sorry guys. I’m cranky. This is the 6th bad movie I’ve seen in the past week (Ice Princess, Hitchhiker’s Guide, XXX2, House of Wax, an advanced screening of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and now this!).

My expectations going “into this B-movie-straight-to-video-quality Stallone-level” flick (who I met in person yesterday by the way, go Sly!) was that despite the obvious uncleverness of the script, Farrell would come through for us and save it. But my worst fears came true. I believe Farrell may have had a little bit TOO MUCH control over this movie, completely butchering any type of comedy that the original story may have delivered. Case-in-point, there’s a scene where Phil gives his players gifts for playing so well: caged birds. This is followed by a scene where he takes the kids down to the local butcher shop to slaughter some cows. Catch my drift on the randomness? Its scenes like this that made me leave the theater kicking and screaming.

Clint Fletcher is a writer, critic, filmmaker and action film fan from Chicago.

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