Woody Harrelson is one of the most interesting actors there is in Hollywood. He burst onto the scene as Woody Boyd in the already established sitcom Cheers, playing a dim-witted huckseed who provided a lot of comedy by having us laugh at him, not with him like most of the other characters on the show. For most that would be it. They would ride off into the sunset with that on their resume and be satisfied they had once been a major player on a major sitcom for 8 years.
But this seemingly one note actor had something different in mind. He decided to become one of the more versatile and dependable actors over the span of the last 30 years. He rarely puts in a bad performance, even in bad movies, and he does his damn best to elevate whatever material he finds himself with. And he can play in every genre there is. He's done dramas such as The People vs. Larry Flint and The Messenger, action such as Money Train, sexy films like Indecent Proposal, sci-fi like Solo or War for the Planet of the Apes, comic book movies such as Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and of course his original genre of comedy with the gems of Kingpin and a hilarious supporting turn in Edge of Seventeen. And I'm sorry Sam Rockwell. Woody Harrelson was ten times better than you with ten times less the screen time in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and deserved your Oscar.
Yet when I saw the preview for the Harrelson film Champions, I wondered to myself, "can he pull this off?" The premise of the film is that Harrelson is a disgraced professional basketball coach who after a drunk driving charge is assigned community service having to work with a group of intellectually disabled children and turn them into a team. In other words, a stereotype of a film.
The problem with a film like this is that there isn't a lot of places you can go that the audience isn't expecting you to go. And while going there you have to avoid all of the cliches that come with a story such as this. And yet somehow, Bobby Farrelly who made his living on raunchy comedies such as Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary, manages to sidestep most of them. He does this by doing three things.
First, the kids he casts in the roles of the intellectually handicapped parts are all actually intellectually handicapped. They are not actors pretending. And they nail the parts. Even with veteran actors such as Cheech Marin, Ernie Hudson, and the great Harrelson, the kids steal most of the scenes they are in with their genuineness.
Second, using Harrelson himself. As stated before, Harrelson can do almost anything including making a not so likable guy likable, and playing off the kid actors as though he really has a deep affection for them. The role takes a certain balance that Harrelson pulls off without much difficulty that others might not be able to. The chemistry he has with Kaitlin Olson as his no nonsense love interest is great and believable.
The final thing Farrelly does is give the film a lot of heart. You find yourself caring for these characters and what happens to them to the point that I found myself wiping away tears on my flight to California. And it's not sad emotion, but emotion of pride. Those cliches I spoke about before the film manages to mostly avoid. Other than a far fetched scheme to get their money to travel to Canada for the finals, there were a lot of surprises where I thought there wouldn't be. The ending was a nice compromise of realism.
Champions is a feel good movie but not one that manipulates you to get there. It genuinely earns its emotions with strong performances, a good story, and a big heart.
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