By Pete Hammond
Story
It’s a comic smorgasboard of cine
teenmatic influences from
Bring It On and
Superbad to buddy comedies like
Wedding Crashers. Shawn (
Nicholas D*Agosto) and Nick (
Eric Christian Olsen) are girl-obsessed jocks on the Ford High School football team. They scheme to trade another sweat-induced summer at football camp for a stint at the mostly female cheerleading camp instead. Their insincere motive? Score with the chicks. However, their muscular presence begins to turn around the miserable fortunes of this pathetic squad and now with an “S” for Shawn and an “N” for Nick, the team has a genuine chance to score for the first time at the cheer competition finals. On top of all this, Shawn falls for the team captain.
Acting
With a fresh and lively cast,
Fired Up transcends the derivative nature of this kind of teen. Learning everything they know from conniving male screen teams like
Vince Vaughn and
Owen Wilson, D’Agosto and Olsen may be the best pairing since those two started crashing weddings. Their nonstop rat-a-tat locker room-style patter about girls and sex is delivered with the panache of real comic pros -- especially good is a scene where they must try out their cheer routines for their coach with only a strategically placed pom pom for cover.
Direction
TV sitcom creator (
The Loop) and first-time feature director
Will Gluck tends to approach this lightweight material exactly as if he were doing it for the small screen but somehow it works -- with the film’s main attribute being a breezy pace and effortless staging of the cheerleading set pieces. The movie clearly doesn’t take itself seriously , even indirectly addressing its
Bring It On similarities by having the gang actually watching that movie one night and reciting the dialogue in unison. Funny stuff.