Dodgeball: A True Underdog's Story (Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller) 1/2
You'd think a movie based on the idea of a professional dodgeball tournament would be content to run its one-joke premise into the ground, since there is a fair amount of room to maneuver with such an outlandish subject. But Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story goes well beyond this tier. It lampoons the countless feel-good sports flicks that make our eyes roll, it takes aim at irritating public gyms that prey on the self-conscious, it pot-shots numerous social groups and stereotypes, and it does all this, and more, with --surprisingly enough -- a bit of heart; despite the fact that Ben Stiller is in it.
Actually, Stiller is out-and-out hilarious as White Goodman, a gym owner with an, ahem, inflated ego. Goodman is looking to buy out his neighbours at Average Joe's, an athletic facility managed by the unassuming Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn). To watch the diminuitive Stiller in the archetypal villain role is to watch a comedic performer at the top of his game. With every gravelly reply of his nonsensical retorts, Stiller is possessed by brash characteristics and exuberant grins and scowls that reflect his confident approach to the character. It is a pleasure to give in to his twisted interpretation.
When Peter at Average Joe's is visited by a lawyer (Christine Taylor, who, amazingly, is Stiller's wife in real life), he is informed he has 30 days to come up with the rather precise amount of $50,000 or the facility will end up in rival White Goodman's hands. Peter and his gang of underdogs (among them, a man with a mail order bride, a geeky teen cheerleader, and a guy who thinks he's a pirate) decide to enter a dodgeball tournament where top prize just happens to be $50,000. Incidentally, the event is to be broadcast on ESPN 8 ("The Ocho!"), a station with all the rejected or unlikely sports.
The guys know virtually nothing about the sport, so they watch a phys.ed. video from the 1950s that provides some of the biggest laughs in the movie. Next, Peter meets up with the surly Patches O'Houlihan, who appeared in the original training film from way back when and now confined to a wheelchair. He proposes to coach the rejects to the championship. Patches is played by Rip Torn, and he epitomizes the stereotypical politically incorrect coach... and then some. When the time comes for the team to head for Las Vegas, they compete against some of the funniest looking teams ever, all the while receiving voice-over commentary by the enthusiastic Cotton McKnight (Gary Cole) and the stoned-out Pepper Brooks (Jason Bateman, in an absolutely riotous physical performance). Many of the plot points are then neatly tied together, although some of them come off as too cerebral for all the shenanigans that precede them.
What sets Dodgeball above the lowly rung that I incorrectly assumed it would occupy, is that it more often than not avoids falling into the perilous trap of gross-out comedy, as so many similar movies tend to. Sure, there are some quasi-violent movies and one or two icky moments that could be deemed as on the fence (particularly one especially reserved for the end of the closing credits), but more often than not, they fall into the realm of slapstick rather than gross-out purely for the sake of grossing out. As written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber (never heard of him before, but will no doubt look for in the future), the relatively plotless picture nevertheless proceeds at the proper pace.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the numerous cameos in the film, but it would also be downright cruel to reveal their identities in a review (even if only one person ends up accidentally reading it), on the off chance that the surprises are ruined. Suffice to say, they are fun to behold, as are the scads of visual gags that chip along as onscreen throwaways, kind of like the old Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movies used to do. Indeed, I was surprised at how many of Dodgeball's jokes landed square on the mark -- and were supposed to be funny (although I must confess I'm still confused about a pizza slice sequence that will no doubt need to be explained to me as if I were a child). The performances are great, the zingers fly, and it's just plain old sweet at the end. This is by far the best movie about dodgeball I have ever seen.
