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Friday, June 18, 2004
Gags come fast and low in 'Dodgeball'
Once a punchline in teen movies and nostalgia-laden television shows, the gym class nightmare known as dodgeball is making its bid to be taken seriously (sort of) as a real sport. City leagues are sprouting up, cable sports channels fill out their off-hours with tournament coverage, and the newly created "Extreme Dodgeball" TV series may be the nadir of un-reality TV.
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It's hard to tell if Rawson Marshall Thurber's farcical sports spoof, "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," is visionary, lucky or simply inevitable. It may not be original, but it's often shamelessly funny and more clever than I expected. Not much, mind you, but enough to catch me off guard with a few surprise throws.
Some flip-flop casting helps sell it. Vince Vaughn, so good at vain and vaguely menacing, gets to play the likable den mother to a clientele of amiable losers as underachieving schlub Peter La Fleur, the everyman owner of the failing Average Joe's Gym. Ben Stiller, with past success at try-too-hard timidity and tongue-tied embarrassment ("Something About Mary" and "Meet the Parents"), plays against type as nemesis White Goodman, a supercilious health club magnate who plots to foreclose on Peter's bankrupt business.
In the dubious tradition of such underdog sports comedies, Peter and his pals enter the national dodgeball finals in Las Vegas to win the $50,000 purse (their team motto: aim low) and White puts together a steroid-enhanced opponent team of bullying bruisers to make it personal.
First time writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber makes no pretense at satire or creative surprises and he isn't above lobbing a gag at the groin for a laugh or three (or 10). But he has the good sense not to dwell on the gags, instead allowing them to linger in the background while the film moves along.
The laughs come from a script full of non-sequiturs and dead-end metaphors sputtered by a preening Stiller, who -- under feathered hair and a ridiculous Fu Manchu mustache -- does a take on the narcissistic moron act he honed in "Zoolander" and "Heavyweights." A grizzled Rip Torn growls crass insults.
There's nothing new to the old game except snazzy outfits, slick accoutrements and better banter, but like his misfit heroes, Thurber aims low and hits his mark.
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