Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Champions’ on Peacock, an Endearingly Featherweight Collection of Feelgood Sports-Movie Cliches

Champions (now streaming on Peacock) is nearly almost notable for two reasons: One, it’ll slake our unquenchable thirst for Woody Harrelson basketball movies, this being his first since 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump (a remake of which is due on Hulu here soon). And two, Harrelson re-teams with Bobby Farrelly, who co-directed the star with brother Peter Farrelly in 1995’s wild probably-wouldn’t-be-made-today comedy Kingpin. Champions marks Bobby’s solo directorial debut after his brother won an Oscar for Green Book (you may say “ugh” here); Bobby’s new film, about a disgraced basketball coach who ends up taking the reins of a Special Olympics team, doesn’t have enough oomph and interest behind it to generate anything close to that level of “acclaim,” but maybe it’ll deliver enough laughs and warmth to earn two hours of your time.

CHAMPIONS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Marcus Marakovich (Harrelson) puts the “ass” in “assistant coach.” He’s a bit full of himself and a bit hot-headed and a bit good at his job on the sidelines of a junior-league basketball team. But he’s also more than a bit fired after he shoves his head coach during a game and ends up as a shitty meme for everyone to laugh at. On top of that, he tends to sleep with women, for example Alex (Kaitlin Olson of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and then coldly dismiss them the next morning. And then, to top it off, he DUIs his way right into the rear end of a cop car, and the judge gives him a choice that is entirely realistic and wholly plausible in real life and not just Hollywood-movie bullshit: 18 months in the slammer or go coach a team of intellectually disabled individuals down at the rec center. Please note, this isn’t an actual choice, but very much a fake-ass choice, because if he chose the former this would be a very different type of movie, so different that it probably would never be made.

Anyway. Marcus strolls onto the court and wouldn’t you know it, he’s got a team of misfits on his hands. One player, Showtime (Bradley Edens) only shoots the ball backwards. Another, Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), never takes a shower. Cosentino (Madison Tevlin), the token girl, is better at revving up the team than Coach is. One dude, Craig (Matthew Von Der Ahe) always brags about his sexual conquests. And the best player on the team, Darius (Joshua Felder), takes one look at Marcus, says “Nope” and walks out the door. Does Coach have his work cut out for him? Is he in over his head? Are there any other cliches I could use to describe the scenario? Yes, yes and yes, in that order. Come to find out, in the previous paragraph, I didn’t just offhandedly reference the woman Marcus slept with by noting her name and the person who plays her and the popular TV show you know her from, because she just so happens to be the older sister of the player who never takes a shower. Small town, Des Moines, eh? 

So Marcus does his damnedest to whip this team, dubbed the Friends, into shape. Will he succeed? Will he teach them how to pick-and-roll? Will they have wacky road trips in Alex’s goofy RV, which she uses to put on traveling Shakespeare performances? Will there be montages? (Answer: Oh boy, there will!) Will there be Chumbawamba and Globetrotter-theme needle drops? Will Coach secretly angle for a dream NBA job behind everyone’s back? Will the Nope Guy ever come around? Will Alex and Marcus get past their awkwardness and realize they kinda like each other? Will the Friends win enough games to get to the Big Game that’s so Big they could become the thing in the title? NO SPOILERS, but if you aren’t anticipating every beat of this story, then we can probably see your lobotomy scar from the Moon.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: In the past couple of years, we got a more serious take on the basketball-coach-redemption plot via Ben Affleck in The Way Back, and a surprisingly memorable Adam Sandler-as-an-assistant-roundball-coach Netflick (pun intended) Hustle. Generally speaking, Champions is the ragtag-group-of-misfits underdog fodder that applies to zillions of sports movies before it, and it shows some considerable Bad News Bears and Mighty Ducks influence.

Performance Worth Watching: The watery screenplay results in no individual cast member truly standing out, so let’s shout out Iannucci and Felder for skillfully executing a few emotionally reticent moments for a movie that really needs them.

Memorable Dialogue: Marcus whips up a doozy of an analogy for his pro-career situation: “Those guys are dicks. I don’t want to be the fig leaf covering those dicks.”

Cosentino True Detectives Harrelson when she assesses his looks: “You’re no McConaughey.” 

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The bathos is a little thick here, and the comedy a little thin, and the movie comes precariously close to using its cast of intellectually disabled persons as comedy props, and there’s a point where the entire movie nearly becomes a string of montages – but Champions’ rough-around-the-edges shaggy-dog quality is more endearing than annoying, and its heart is in the right place. Farrelly isn’t at all an exacting director, as scenes feel loose and underrehearsed, and a handful of them could be excised to render this two-hour outing a leaner, more effective watch, but that would mean spending less time with a cast that seems to be enjoying themselves in front of the camera, and generating some warmth and goodwill in the process.

Although Harrelson brings his scratchy sandpaper edge to his character, you ultimately won’t mistake Marcus for an unforgivable cad, or the movie for anything but shameless feelgoodism. So Champions is just fine, yet there’s the nagging feeling that a more thoughtful and compelling story could emerge from an alternate version of the screenplay. Marcus is, ultimately, not at all an interesting character, and one wonders if telling the story from the perspective of Johnny would yield a far better film: His father abandoned his family; he lives at home with his mother and Alex, but wants to move into a group home with some of the other Friends; Alex has a goofy and unusual job. We could’ve had some insight into the life of a young man with Down Syndrome, but instead, we get a predictable story about an adult coach who goes from a near inability to not use the r-word to describe the Friends to delivering inspirational speeches to a bunch of lovable folks who’ve learned the value of teamwork. As it is, it’s fine, but it could’ve been so much more.

Our Call: The generally enjoyable OKness of Champions renders it watchable, if not particularly rousing or memorable. But it’s 51/49 on the endearing/annoying scale, so STREAM IT if you need some lightweight uplift in your life. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.