Kicking & Screaming

Watching this film made me remember when Mike Ditka was on the sidelines shouting and swearing off his own players when they didn't meet his demands. Will Farrel's performance was wacky and funny considering the fact he was competing against his dad (Robert Duvall in a nice spot). Anyone who likes soccer will find this film entertaining for a change along with Bend it Like Beckham. The kids on all the teams did their best on and off the field. If there would of been better props, we could say this movie could equal Little Giants(1994), another good comic sports film.Between a one two ten, I give a seven and a half thanks to the director's effort to bring in Mike Ditka to help out.

Kicking and Screaming was decent. Will Ferrel plays the son of a dad who WILL NOT lose to ANYONE (Robert Duvall). He takes over coaching his son's Little League soccer team and goes nuts trying to win at all costs.

Kicking & Screaming seemed like it wanted to be the Anchorman of kid's movies, but it just lost me. There were some really funny parts, one involving the team needing to help out at the Italian kids family butcher shop, but overall, it just tried to hard to be a quirky movie that adults and kids would enjoy.

All in all, not Will Ferrel's best movie, but definitely not horrible. A good saterday night rental.

If you're a parent with kids in AYSO soccer, or a kid that plays(ed) the game, then you'll love this mindless, uplifting comedy about a coach going to the extreme to help his Tigers soccer team win. If you expect nothing more than that, then you'll enjoy yourself and have fun with this movie. The kids' soccer play has some real tricks, many of which our own kids tried during the next Saturday game! Kudos especially to Robert Duvall and Mike Ditka who really played their parts well and added a lot of variety to the movie so that it is not completely saturated with Will Ferrell (who also balanced his father/son roles well). A great family flick enjoyed by all, even the grandparents :)

You may be surprised to learn that rather than just being another overly silly Will Ferrell movie, Kicking & Screaming is actually a brilliantly poignant exposé on the foibles of the human condition. While a movie like Crash chooses to tackle the heavy issue of human relationships within a racially diverse atmosphere, Kicking & Screaming goes a different direction and touches the soul of two topics that are near and dear to my heart: sports competition and coffee addiction.

I don't know about you girly girls, but all us manly men are well-rehearsed in sports competitiveness. If you're worth your "man weight" in gold, then you're driven by the need to compete. This isn't something that you carry through high school and then grow out of, oh no, you're stuck with it for life. I may have been at my most intense when running over a catcher back when I played high school baseball, but I'm still known to throw an elbow in the church basketball league and to do a little trash talking during a heated ping pong match. If you refuse to believe a ping pong match can get heated, then you've never played it the right way.

Anyway, this is a movie whose humor feeds heavily off the fuel provided by the competitiveness of all the men involved. Whether it be Robert Duvall (a real man who says the only daily vitamin he needs is a steak) going toe-to-toe against Will Ferrell in a passionate game of tether ball or Duvall and Mike Ditka constantly trying to outdo each other or Will Ferrell becoming so addicted to coffee that he installs a cappuccino machine on the bench and forces Ditka to resign as assistant coach, the chemistry just works.

It's a chemistry that is hard to accurately depict in writing. A chemistry whose effectiveness lies in the delivery. For example, there's a young Asian boy on the soccer team named "Byong Sun." When his mother asks Ditka for an autograph, Ditka asks how to spell his name. She starts to spell it, but he stops her and says, "I think I got it." When she later looks at the autograph she sees that Ditka has written, "Bing Bong." I can't explain why, but this had me cracking up for about 5 minutes. I'd try to concentrate on the movie, then I'd think about how self-assured Ditka was that he now knew how to spell the name, and I'd bust out laughing all over again. Then later in the movie when Ditka yells out, "Way to go, Bing Bong!" I lost it all over again. It's just one of those things.

Or when Ditka tells the kids, "I eat quitters for breakfast and spit out their bones," and then Ferrell deadpans, "Delicious." My words can't do it justice. It's all in the timing and delivery. Sometimes this type of humor is so subtle that it might not be fully appreciated, so I'm warning you now to pay attention to it.

Speaking of Ditka, he steals the show. He has a natural talent for comedy like this, and it's hard not to laugh when he's on screen wearing a Bears sweater vest or a shirt that has "Ditka" on it. Just sit back and enjoy his competitive bickering with Duvall. When Duvall starts to taunt Ditka because he's been reduced to coaching little league soccer, Ditka responds by holding his hand out and saying, "I couldn't hear ya; my Super Bowl ring was making too much noise." The self-referential tone works perfectly.

The kids can get a little too cutesy at times, which will play well with soccer moms, but they do have some genuinely funny moments. Steven Anthony Lawrence is pretty annoying (intentionally so), but I did a spit take (well, not literally) when the camera focused on his face while he was running and he breathlessly stated, "I'm in bad shape for 11." I guess you had to be there.

I'm giving the movie 4 marks, and I realize that's fairly high, but this *is* a family movie, and as such it's one of the most entertaining family movies I've seen in a while. Sure, I didn't care for some of the cutesy kid stuff, and things *do* get predictable and silly, but what are negative elements for me will be looked upon more favorably by younger audiences and sappy parents.

To find a movie that will keep adults consistently laughing throughout without resorting to material that'd make you squirm if you're sitting next to mama or the kids, you usually have to look for the Pixar label, so I tip my hat to Kicking & Screaming for succeeding. This is the kind of "kid's movie" I want to take my 10-year-old brother to, not Racing Stripes.

Oh, and please do yourself a favor and try not to take the movie too seriously. If you're such a curmudgeon that you'd actually complain about the scene where a mother stops her son during a game to put sunscreen on his face, and you actually question why she didn't do this BEFORE the game then I'm sorry, but you deserve to be slapped. Let me explain something... *ahem* IT'S A MOVIE!! Still not clear? OK, let me elaborate...

IT'S A WILL FERRELL MOVIE!! Do you see "directed by Clint Eastwood" attached to the credits? No? Then remove the corn cob, loosen up, and enjoy life a little.

Sheesh. Some people. Now who wants to go head-to-head with the Betts-meister in a friendly game of ping pong?

It's strange how people look at Will Farrell movies & think Will is the funny guy. Will is sometimes a weird guy (in fact in this soccer movie, he is a weird coach). But in most movies, Wills best moments are making others seem funny when they play off of him.

In this movie where the Bad News Bears do soccer in a way, Will Ferrell makes Mike Ditka look good. He makes Robert Duvall look good. He even makes the kids look good. Will is just pretty much himself, weird and a little out of touch with reality. Make that a whole lot out of touch with reality.

Still, the support he gets in this movie is priceless. The concept of the team arriving late at a soccer game in a Butcher truck all wearing bloody aprons is inspired. Some of the other things are creative & cute too. The films end is predictable, but a little different. Overall, it is entertaining for a young audience.

Mike Ditka should find some more movie work. He is pretty good in this, & is missed when he leaves the film for a while.