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+ Best Michigan Movie of the Year + Best Sports Comedy of the Year + Career-Killer of the Year: Kent Alterman
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| The two personable co-stars pale in the sheen of Will Ferrell's ridiculousness on this simple poster for Kent Alterman's Semi-Pro |
1970s Flint, Michigan: Local 'king of funk' Jackie Moon is a star with his hit song Love Me Sexy and his place on the Tropics basketball team. But now the future stands between death or the NBA for the team, who need to fight for survival.
Semi-Pro is written by Scot Armstrong (Road Trip (2000)) and directed by debuting Kent Alterman (After the Sunset (2004, executive producer)).
This comedy is a solid late-night pleasure; it lacks the great big screaming laughs that adorn Will Ferrell's (Bewitched (2005)) best comedies, but it still has a solid amount of chuckle-inducing scenes.
The film relishes its period setting, which is painted as male-chauvinist and uncontrolled compared to today's world, with Moon's promotion especially amateurish and pretty darn funny.
André Benjamin (American Crime (2016, TV-series)), Woody Harrelson (I'll Do Anything (1994)) and Tim Meadows (Mr. Box Office (2012-13)) are also good here. Semi-Pro is a minor comedy nugget.
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Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 43.8 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.79 times its cost)
[Semi-Pro premiered 19 February (Westwood, California) and runs 92 minutes. Shooting took place in Michigan and in California, including Los Angeles, in and around February 2007. 7 weeks after the film's release, grizzly bear Rocky, who plays Dewie the Bear in the film, bit one its trainers in the neck, killing him. The film opened #1 to a 15 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more week in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 33.4 mil. $ (76.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 4.1 mil. $ (9.4 %) and Australia with 3.7 mil. $ (8.4 %). It was New Line Cinemas last film, before the company was absorbed into Warner Bros. Alterman has not directed or produced anything since, ending his more than 10 year career in films with the film. Ferrell returned in Stepbrothers (2008); Benjamin in 2 music videos and a TV-series before reaching the big screen again in Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013); Harrelson in Surfer, Dude (2008). Semi-Pro is rotten at 23 % with a 4.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Semi-Pro?
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