The court orders a former minor-league basketball coach to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities. He soon realizes that despite his doubts, together, this team can go further than they ever imagined.
Woody Harrelson, Ernie Hudson, and Cheech Marin star in a different kind of basketball film that intelligently tugs at the heartstrings. Harrelson plays Marcus, a minor league basketball coach prone to letting his emotions get the better of him. Marcus is fired when he disagrees with head coach Phil Perretti (Ernie Hudson) on a play call and then shoves him during a game.
While driving home after too much time in a local bar, Marcus runs into the back of a police car. Somewhat surprisingly, Coach Perretti posts his bail before Marcus’ arraignment. For the DWI charge, the judge proposes 60 days of community service coaching a local basketball team. When Marcus starts to object, he learns that the alternative sentence will be an even longer term in the county jail. Case closed.
On his first day of community service, Marcus meets Julio (Cheech Marin), who runs the recreational center where a group of intellectually challenged kids plays. Less than pleased, Marcus nevertheless does his best to coach the team.
Catching a ride home with one of the players named Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), his older sister Alex (Kaitlin Olson) turns out to be a recent one-night-stand from an online dating site that Marcus visited – an encounter that didn’t end particularly well. Alex later reveals that she is a single woman in her forties living in Des Moines, Iowa – a town that apparently doesn’t boast a lot of good prospects for her. They agree on a friends-with-benefits association mainly because they both know he will move on to greener pastures soon enough. As such, they keep their relationship a secret.
Alex lives with her mother, Dot (Barbara Pollard). Highly protective of Johnny, Alex does not want her brother to move away, even though he has worked out arrangements to live with other intellectually challenged roommates with whom he feels more at home.
The special needs kids each have their own story. Darius (Joshua Felder), the best player on the team, refuses to play for Marcus for reasons he reveals later. Another player has a quirk of only shooting with his head turned away from the basket. The real standout is Madison Tevlin as Cosentino, the conscience and prime motivator of the team. One of her most memorable lines is a response to the assistant coach, Sonny (Matt Cook), who continually shouts commands at her during practice. She tells him that while she may have Down Syndrome, she is not deaf.
Marcus, probably rightly so, believes that he should be an NBA coach, even though his sketchy reputation precedes him. When he finally does get an offer as a third-string NBA coach, the triumph turns out to be a mixed bag. Therein lies the conflict Marcus must address – for once, he has developed real attachments to other people that he may decide to walk away from. Slowly, he realizes that all of that will dissolve if he chooses to follow the same path he has been on most of his life. Along the way, Coach Perretti shows up at opportune moments to help Marcus navigate the terrain.
Directed by Bobby Farrelly and based on the Spanish film “Campeones,” the combination of solid acting and confident pacing takes what could have been a perfunctory exercise in filmmaking into much more. With a runtime of just over two hours, the ride is so enjoyable that the movie feels much shorter. At the end of the day, “Champions” is a formula film that punches far above its weight, providing a healthy dose of laughter without patronizing its audience in the process.
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