Top Box Office Movies - The Comebacks

The Comebacks (2007) Fox Atomic
1 hr. 35 mins.
Starring: David Koechner, Carl Weathers, Matthew Lawrence, Melora Hardin, Brooke Nevin, Nick Searcy
Directed by: Tom Brady
This film is rated: PG-13

The Comebacks

Rating:

E-MAIL FRANK OCHIENG

Photo: Fox Atomic

Let’s face it, folks...we need another repetitive spoof movie like a piglet needs dirty fingernails. After such recent delirious dribble as Balls of Fury, Date Movie and Epic Movie, the box office brain trust serves up the lame sporting romp The Comebacks. Convincingly pointless, predictable and prankish, The Comeback has the usual propensity for that ingredient known as sheer stupidity. There’s absolutely nothing challenging about the rudimentary outrageousness that persists in this flagrantly foul farce. It’s the same old story—moviemakers conjure up a dimwitted ditty involving making exaggerated fun of frolicking fare that has its own built-in inherent ridiculousness to boot.

The main problem with spotty comedies that stick their impetuous tongues out much like The Comebacks is the simplistic approach to stringing along one stale gag after another. The results are pretty much the same: some sight gags and lowbrow ribbing linger along the lines of a hit-or-miss sentiment...mostly the latter as opposed to the former. This particular sketch-ridden sports-movie constantly winks at its overwrought foolishness while never allowing the audience to digest the inane humor long enough to recognize the copycat patterns of the countless put-on laughers this flaccid display borrows from so painfully. Relentlessly cliched and tedious, The Comebacks may possibly tickle the indiscriminate funnybones of clueless fratboys and fanatical sports addicts but won’t phase others in the least.

The remotely amusing tidbit about the ridiculed sports-oriented The Comebacks is that it’s directed by Tom Brady, a filmmaker that ironically shares his famous moniker with the iconic Golden Boy gridiron signal caller from the three-time NFL Superbowl champion New England Patriots. Otherwise, Brady (“The Hot Chick”) doesn’t muster up anything distinctively off-kilter to lend The Comebacks its missing wacky wit. Consequently, this paper-thin parody marches through the familiar motions of silly-minded satire while never rising above its meager madness. Maybe the wrong Brady was at the misguided helm of this cheap-minded chucklefest? The movie probably would have been in better hands of either the AFC’s Tom or “The Brady Bunch’s” Cindy for that matter. The empty-headed irreverence behind The Comebacks never registers beyond aping its lazy connect-the-dots jocularity.

David Koechner (a one-time “Saturday Night Live” castmember) plays the put-upon chubby and balding football coach Lambeau Fields (get it, folks...especially all you Wisconsin cheeseheads). After years of wallowing in the ranks of instructing football to trannies, Fields is offered a chance to teach X’s and O’s to random misfits at Heartland University. The only way that Fields can show some inspirational guidance into the game of “yards and inches” is haphazardly introduce his ragtag bunch to various sports movies that should be instantly recognizable by moviegoers recalling everything from the ultra-sappy Radio to the critical darling Friday Night Lights.

And so the off-the-wall seasonal training trudges on with Fields trying to whip into shape his hapless cleat-wearing crew. The coach isn’t necessarily a by-the-book type of guy. In fact, he encourages all sorts of reckless behavior to his line-up of losers from engaging in arbitrary drinking binges to avoiding good grades as if they were the contagious mumps. However, Fields does have something on his mind that he wants his fruitless field soldiers to carry out. The mission at hand: to successfully challenge the gamesmanship of his former assistant coach (Carl Weathers from the “Rocky” movies) and beat him at an upcoming football contest.

Screenwriters Joey Gutierrez, Kevin Sabbe and Ed Yeager (Brady has a co-writing credit as well) merely assembles a whole slew of movie-sporting vehicles and tosses about the stagnant lampooning experiences as if they were selling thick phone books to cellphone users. It seems all so routine and tiring when Brady and his “creative” cohorts center their toothless goofiness around such reliable stand-by devices involving sexual-innuendo references, hammy performances, dopey dialogue, cross-dressers, nerds, and the bombardment of useless cameos by minor B-celebrities needing some untapped attention. The desperation certainly kicks in when The Comebacks are compelled to take a wicked playful knock at sports movies that actually WERE noteworthy parodies. What is so clever and cynical about busting a gut over stuff like Dodgeball and Blades of Glory at the nutty expense of Comeback’s uneventful smirking? We realize that these pithy presentations were effectively riotous the first time around so why does Brady’s noxious narrative need to re-emphasize the outlandish elements with its feeble, unimaginative spotlight?

The list is endless in the way The Comebacks use ho-hum target practice against a steady of diet of numerous sports flicks without nary any substance backing up the synthetic mockery. Among the noted ire of Brady’s pseudo-seething universe are probing pokes at Rocky Balboa, Radio, Invincible, Field of Dreams, Miracle, Friday Night Lights, Seabiscuit, Coach Carter...among others that you can quickly catch with a blink of an uninteresting eye. Granted that the constant riffing is the rule of thumb behind The Comeback’s so-called knee-slapping high jinks. Still, the comical canvas is undoubtedly full of glaring holes because this movie doesn’t have a stable identity to be consistently hilarious other than to hold a mirror up at the more palatable athletic expositions it’s taunting so awkwardly.

Koechner, who can be infectious in his naughtiness based on the many TV guest appearances and supporting comedic film roles, is insufferable as the middle-aged pot-bellied partyboy coach. Sadly, Koechner is completely strained and one-dimensional in his bid to use his offbeat physicality (read: bouncing belly and a kooky chrome dome) to aid the insanity at large. Weathers stands around stoically as if he’s secretly waiting for a taxicab to transport him to the Dallas cheerleaders’ locker room. Matthew Lawrence figures into the mix on the sidelines transparently while probably wondering whether he should have carried his hair dryer through the local car wash instead of participating in this rhythm-challenged ruse.

Spoofing is indeed an artful endeavor unto itself—just ask the masterminds behind the classically madcap cult favorite Airplane! for instance. Unfortunately, Brady and some of his cockeyed contemporaries will never know how to get to the wry root of a genuine scathing joke. It takes more than pointing the finger at the nonsensical pulse of other moviemakers’ cinematic seediness and conveying your brand of original impish chastising. For this merry-making mess, The Comebacks definitely dropped the ball on the goal line.

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Frank Ochieng
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