With the Super Bowl right around the corner, the Master decided to inflict upon me a terrible football movie. Even worse, he chose a terrible football comedy. That’s like getting a hooker who not only gives you herpes, but punches you in the dick as you climax. That joke would be right at home in “Division III: Football’s Finest”, as it’s crude and rather irrelevant to the topic. It’s purpose is to shock and hopefully elicit a chuckle. It has no bearing on the story or it’s eventual outcome.
I don’t mean that to be a criticism against the film. I like mindless raunchy humor just as the next guy. Obviously so considering I resort to it in my writing. My problem with “Division III” is that it’s not funny. Sure, there’s the occasional chuckle here and there, but not enough to carry this for ninety-eight minutes. Even the potshots at the sports clichés are mostly gentle and have already been covered.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t hate this film if it didn’t star Andy Dick. Had anybody else been cast in his role, I’d most likely let this off with a C-. As I said earlier, there are a few laughs and a few nice jabs at the clichés. They grow tiresome very quickly, but are at least harmless in the long run. The writers (Marshall Cook, Paul Henderson & Andy Dick) rely too heavily on foul humor, but so do other comedies. It’s all in good fun.
Except this movie isn’t fun and I lay most of the blame on Andy Dick! His portrayal of Rick Vice, a self-destructive football coach who was banned from the sport after attempting to murder a Pee Wee team (it’s later proven it was accidental because the idea of murdering children feels out of place in a comedy that isn’t dark whatsoever), is so irritatingly awful! And I don’t want to hear that was the point. Vice was supposed to be an unlikable prick (and he was). That doesn’t mean they can’t play around with that and pluck some humor from it. With Dick, you’re not laughing at the crazy antics, you just want to see him get his face smashed in. That never happens.
He’s brought on to be the head coach of the Blue Cocks (yes, they get a lot of mileage out of that) after their former coach died of a heart attack via having water poured on him. I’m still not sure if that was supposed to be funny. Roy Goodwyn (Michael Jace), the athletics director, is vehemently opposed to this, but the college President, Georgia Anne Whistler (Mo Collins), likes the publicity in brings her failing liberal arts school. All of the players are against this as well because Vice is a prick. It’s pretty simple.
Unsure of anything in life is Mitch DePrima (Marshall Cook, who also serves as director), the backup quarterback for the team. He goes back and forth between being backup and lead throughout the film, which is a knock against the cliché. He’s our protagonist who seems lost in life and gets some of the few laughs in the film by calling people out on their ineptitude (mainly Vice). It’s good that Cook gave himself the best material, as he handles it quite nicely.
Since this is a parody of sorts of sports movies, Mitch has to have a love interest. His is Jennifer (Alison Haislip, who deserves much better), who works for the school as the team’s nurse. At least I think that’s her job. She meets Mitch when tending to his wounds, but states she’d like to attend the school on a medical scholarship. If that’s the case, how is she working for them as a nurse? Either something got lost in translation or this is another poke at the clichés (I’m leaning towards the former).
You can see where this is going. Vice’s radical coaching techniques (which includes dehydrating his players and hitting them with steel chairs) starts them off on a losing streak, but they slowly begin to pick up wins. Roy comes in to help and he and Vice surprisingly work well together. Mitch finds meaning in life, rekindles his fire in football and gets the girl. Cook does this all tongue in cheek and loads the film with raunchy material (which mostly includes Dick going crazy and spouting out almost every curse word known to man).
To be fair, Cook does mess with the formula occasionally. The way the final game plays out was pretty clever and made me chuckle. But that’s the problem; it only made me chuckle. And that’s one of the few times the film did that for me. For the majority of this film, the jokes completely miss. It doesn’t matter if the parody is accurate. The humor, which is essential in a comedy, doesn’t connect. It leaves the viewer rolling their eyes and watching as the clock ticks down. The only time they get lively is when Dick pisses them off and that’s not a good thing.
Cook tries to gain credibility to his film by casting the likes of Adam Carolla, Will Sasso, George Fitzsimmons and Debra Wilson in cameos, but that doesn’t distract from the poor quality of the film. And not just because those people are C-listers at best (not to knock any of them personally). It’s because they’re given lame humor just like everybody else. When they appear on screen, the audience continues to roll their eyes.
Final Rating: D