Mark Reviews Movies: CHAMPIONS (2023)

Champions, Focus Features

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 9, 2023

Champions, in which a bit of a jerk starts coaching a basketball team consisting of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, means well. That's not saying much, except to say that director Bobby Farrelly's movie does a little more than the bare minimum when it comes to its characters with disabilities.

The movie isn't cruel, and it doesn't set out to make jokes at the expense of these characters, simply on account of who they are. That's the bare minimum, perhaps, and the bit more that Farrelly and screenwriter Mark Rizzo do over the course of this story is to give some sense that there is more to these characters than their disabilities, their love of basketball, and the means of ensuring that our protagonist learns a few important lessons about becoming a better person along the way.

The fact that Rizzo's screenplay does focus primarily on the coach is to be expected, if only because that's the formulaic path for this particular type of story and the easy route when it comes to approaching stories about characters who don't fit into a certain mold. Those hints toward the deeper lives of the characters surrounding him are appreciated, to be certain. They also, though, make it apparent that an entirely different perspective for this particular story might have accomplished more than merely meaning well.

Our main character is Marcus (Woody Harrelson), an assistant coach for a lower-end professional basketball team in Des Moines. He might have had a more promising career in college or even in the biggest of the big league in the sport, but Marcus has some issues with anger management and control in general. After his boss and long-time friend Phil (Ernie Hudson) calls a play that Marcus doesn't like in the final seconds of one game, he shoves the team's coach on the sidelines. Fired and disgraced from yet another job, Marcus goes drinking, gets in his car, and, while staring and chuckling at some guys being search by the cops, plows his vehicle into the back of a police cruiser.

A judge offers Marcus a choice: 18 months in prison or a 90-day sentence of community service. He takes the latter, of course, and with his professional experience, the sentence is to coach a local basketball team competing in the Special Olympics.

That Marcus starts to use an offensive and outdated term to describe the players before he even meets them might give one a bit of discomfort on a couple of fronts. He's not that terrible a person, at least—simply an ignorant one. With that lesson learned before Marcus even arrives at the gym to start his gig, though, Rizzo doesn't seem to know what other lesson this character could possibly learn. That makes the movie's focus on him even more disappointing.

When it is about the coach and the team learning to connect and the teammates bonding among themselves, this story, based on a 2018 Spanish movie (never released officially in the United States), approaches a level of consideration and warmth that's refreshing. All of the players are played by actors with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and while their characters' initial introductions might lean too heavily into broad quirks, some of them do emerge to reveal more than such comedic characteristics (The rest don't, obviously, which is how we know the filmmakers could have made a greater effort than what's on display here).

A montage of introductions vaguely explains each player's living and, in some cases, working situations (Marcus is shocked to learn that a couple of them can live alone or work a job, which makes the whole thing feel like rudimentary lesson in the variety of people with disabilities). Among those more vital supporting players, we have Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), whose initially defining characteristic is that he doesn't shower, although we come to learn that he desperately wants to be a "good guy," unlike all of the people who have left him behind over the years.

Meanwhile, Costentino (Madison Tevlin) is a late arrival to the team, showing off a no-nonsense, straight-talking attitude that's immediately endearing. Benny (James Day Keith) has some problems with an unsympathetic boss, and Darius (Joshua Felder) refuses to play for Marcus for a reason that reminds us how much more there could be to these characters than what we see and learn of them within this isolated, restricted backdrop.

Instead, it's mostly about Marcus, who learns patience and that winning isn't everything. Since there's not much to that and the filmmakers are hesitant to give the players more to be and do, he's also trying to find a new job, with the help of his former team's personal trainer Sonny (Matt Cook). Additionally, he gets a sort-of romantic interest in Alex (Kaitlin Olson), Johnny's older sister, who insists she doesn't want a relationship—meaning some misunderstandings and poor communication result in exactly the distracting conflict and predictable outcome one might expect.

Beyond those issues, Champions eventually falls into the pattern of a traditional sports tale about a group of underdogs. We might get to see some of these players as more than the fact of their disabilities and eccentric personalities, but the whole movie, from the choice of main character to the inevitable formula of its plot, works to keep these characters at a certain distance.

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