Starring: Woody Harrelson, Madison Tevlin, Joshua Felder, Kevin Iannucci, Ashton Gunning, Matthew Von Der Ahe, Tom Sinclair, James Day Keith, Alex Hintz, Casey Metcalfe, Bradley Edens, Kaitlin Olsen, Matt Cook, Cheech Marin, Ernie Hudson
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 123 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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An aggressive basketball coach caught drink-driving is sentenced to 90 days of community service – coaching a group of intellectually disabled young men.
Basketball does have a lot of fans, so when they read about this film and note basketball, they will probably want to see it. It begins with the American NBA and some professional games – but, unexpectedly, the film goes in quite a different direction – one in which we all should go.
The film is based on a true story, first filmed in Spain as Campiones. Now the action is in the US city of Des Moines. It focuses on an assistant coach who has plenty of ideas for play but becomes aggressively involved in clashes with the main coach, drinks, hits a police car, is outspoken with the judge but keeps quiet when he learns that he is to do 90 days of community work.
This character is played by Woody Harrelson, who has been on our screens and top billed since the 1980s. While he looks and sounds the same in every film, he is able to embody his different characters so that they are completely credible. He is not a particularly likeable character here, casual in a relationship with a young woman in the city, watching basketball on television instead of paying attention to her.
As part of his community service he is shocked to learn he is to coach a group of young men who are intellectually disabled. This means an entirely different film from what we might have been imagining. One of the strengths of the screenplay is that, unlike a number of films which present a team and the members seem to be interchangeable without much character development, these men are distinctive – their names, their backgrounds, their disability, the kinds of jobs that they are able to do, their moments of awkwardness, their love for basketball, the learning to play as a team.
The film evokes an emotional response from the audience toward the young men and their personalities, lives and relationships. Some of the players have Down Syndrome while others have suffered brain trauma in accidents. The young man that receives most screen attention is Johnny, who turns out to be the brother of the woman that the coach first had his encounter with, the coach now having to reassess his relationships and try to understand how people tick. On the comic side, there is a tall man called Showtime who has been fascinated with the jigs that players who score a basket do – but he has spent years turning his back to the basket, throwing, always missing, but enjoying the jig. There are lots of moments like this throughout the film.
There is the competition element so familiar with films about teams, learning skills, the men having quite some talent, winning matches, and the build-up to the Special Olympics. This is the occasion when the coach is able to give a strong pep talk, explaining to them all that they are champions in what they have achieved no matter what happens.
It is films such as Champions that remind ordinary audiences about sensitivity to those who are disabled, the language they use, the stances that they take, and the possibilities of knowing people by name, their lives, their idiosyncrasies and their humanity.
12 Random Films…
