Movie Review

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (PG-13)

Erin Maxwell

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Hollywood.com Says
After weeks of sequels, remakes, and epic dramas, Dodgeball offers moviegoers the perfect outing to appease their needs for butter and salt, air conditioning and flippant comedy.

Story
Dodgeball is the classic big guy vs. little guy can-do tale featuring your least favorite P.E. activity. Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn) is the irresponsible manager of Average Joe Gymnasium, a low-end workout center that is losing business to Globo Gym America Corp., run by former fatty food fetishist White Goodman (Ben Stiller). Peter discovers that he has 30 days to come up with $50,000 of payments or else he will lose his gym to Goodman. With the help of the bank's lawyer Kate Veatch (Christine Taylor) and a ragtag team of gym regulars, Peter plans on winning the Las Vegas International Dodgeball Open and its first place prize money. Yes folks, all of your favorite sports clichés are here: the salty, experienced coach (Rip Torn) with his inspirational non-sequiturs, the nerd with a girl to impress, a love triangle between the two rivals, and of course, pirates. What? You were expecting a high concept and clever plot twists, perhaps? C'mon.

Acting
If you want character development, go see the folks at Merchant-Ivory. This is irreverent comedy, folks. And truth be told, it's nothing we haven't seen before. Vince Vaughn hones his too-cool-for-school, good-guy persona against Ben Stiller's lycra-covered, over-the-top overachiever with a '70s porn moustache. Stiller's performance is colored with shades of the dim-witted Zoolander and the granny-thrashing nurse from Happy Gilmore, but it works. The two actors play off of each other and their co-stars quite well. (Stiller's codpiece alone deserves its own screen credit.) But like a good drummer carries a band, the movie's costars are what keeps the audience's attention. And as always, Rip Torn does crazy like no one else as dodgeball manager Patches O'Houlihan. He chews the scenery, spouting nuggets of wisdom such as, "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball" before heaving a tool at one poor kid. As for the team of Average Joes, Stephen Root, Justin Long, and Joel Moore keep the gags rolling, as do the actors who make cameo appearances. This laugher has more guest stars than a two-hour Love Boat special. With a list that includes David Hasselhoff, Chuck Norris, Jason Bateman, Hank Azaria, I was almost expecting Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise to show up in a red Ferrari. The highlights? Well, Gary Cole shines in his bow to the great Vin Scully, but nothing could beat Lance Armstrong, who laid down the best guilt trip I've seen since I moved to the dorms.

Direction
This is Rawson Marshall Thurber's first time out playing with the big boys. Quite a burden for a Tinseltown newbie, but Thurber pulls it off agreeably. All of your favorite sports movies will be mocked, and you will enjoy it. Thurber uses everything he can to get a laugh. Whether he's clowning Tony Robbins, parodying '50s instructional videos, or using pizza in a perverse and unholy manner, Thurber keeps his audiences attention with enough breakneck shtick to make Mel Brooks proud. But most importantly, he never forgets the fundamental rule to slapstick comedy: hitting people with stuff is very, very funny, especially if it's in the nether regions or some area of the human body that could potentially hurt or bleed a whole lot.

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Everyone's a Critic

"The lameness of recent Ben Stiller comedies seems proportional to the amount he mugs in them--and he mugs a ton in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, his fourth stinker of 2004."
Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune

"…Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is told by the victims. It's like Revenge of the Nerds on the hardwood."
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

"Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story takes 25 minutes to establish that playing dodgeball is how the protagonist will erase his debts."
Mike Clark, USA Today

"It is a bruising comedy that can leave you aching with laughter, or just aching, with subdural humortomas."
Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News

"First-time writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber makes no pretense at satire or creative surprises…he has the good sense not to dwell on the gags, instead allowing them to linger in the background while the film moves along."
Sean Alexander, Seattle Post-Intelligencer