Will Ferrell is an odd man. The ex-Saturday Night Live star has made a career out of portraying goofy blundering idiots, but unfortunately for him the shtick has gotten old.
In “Kicking & Screaming,” Ferrell’s newest film, he plays a suburban yuppie soccer dad named Phil Weston. Imagine Ned Flanders from “The Simpsons,” remove the admiration for God, and you have Phil Weston-a vitamin store owner who wears pastels and has more pent-up rage then a former postal worker.
Much of Phil’s rage stems from the rocky relationship he has with his father Buck (Robert Duval), a sporting goods store owner and the little league soccer coach of Phil’s son Sam (Dylan McLaughlin), and Phil’s brother Bucky (Josh Hutcherson).
When Buck trades Sam from his team, the Gladiators, to the Tigers (a trade which is equivalent of going from the Pistons to the Clippers), Phil takes up the position of coaching his son’s new team. After an embarrassing defeat, Phil looks to his father’s neighbor and mortal enemy, Mike Ditka, for help. With the help of Ditka, who is only helping him so that he can get back at Buck, and the addition of two young Italian players, nephews of Ditka’s butcher, the team goes from abomination to success after just a few practices.
All the success, combined with a coffee addiction, sends Phil into a power hungry craze. He ends up rupturing his relationship with Sam, who he was originally doing all this for to begin with, his team and his wife.
Do not be confused by this film’s marketing-it is not really a family film. In fact, this film really only seems to cater to one demographic: the 8 to twelve-year-olds. Anyone younger may not understand why Ferrell is shoving kids from other teams around, or why he is tossing lawn chairs like Bobby Knight. On the other hand, anyone over twelve will probably get bored with this film and start fixating on Ditka’s ridiculously perfect hair. (How in the hell does he do that?)
This is not a kid’s sports film either, seeing that the audience never really gets to know any of the youngsters. The film is comprised of scene after scene of Ferrell running around acting like a buffoon with either Duval or Ditka stepping in to add a lame one-liner or cheesy challenge. In fact, some scenes add nothing to the film. They just seem like old Saturday Night Live skits that Ferrell did not get to perform on television so he put them in this film. For instance, scenes involving Phil inside a local coffee shop only drag out the film and offer minimal laughs. Or take the scene in which Phil gathers all the boys in his backyard for a camp out and begins to howl at the moon causing all the neighborhood dogs to attack the makeshift camp ground. These scenes are pointless and annoying.
This film is not totally devoid of laughs though. There are a few scenes that are reason to grab ahold of your gut. The best involves Phil and the team helping their Italian teammates cut up an entire cow, and then arriving at their game in a meat truck wearing aprons and covered in enormous amounts of blood and guts. The reason this scene works so well is because of a joint collaboration between the actors and director, Jesse Dylan. As the team exits the meat truck stone-faced and in slow motion, smoke bellows out and Dylan’s camera captures an image closer to “Reservoir Dogs” then “The Big Green.” The end result is a sight gag that would leave Lorne Micheals kicking himself.
Perhaps it is reasons like the meat truck scene why “Kicking & Screaming” seems so odd. It tries to poke fun at too many things, from subtle jabs at other movies (the boys use a move similar to “The Flying-V”) to tongue-in-cheek pokes at suburbia (a small woman driving a Hummer and taking up two places).
This film has a hard time grounding itself though. It jumps from scene to scene with out any real transition or any true purpose. The main problem, however, is that watching Ferrell as the same character for an hour and a half is like listening to just one song on repeat.
It is a shame that this movie is being aimed at children and families because most small kids will not get it, and most parents will probably be scratching their heads. Sort of like Micheals now that Ferrell is gone.
