Thank you Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe. So I’m watching this spoof ‘The Comebacks’ and after seeing the spoof ‘Date Movie’ which topped of my list as the worst film of 2006 and the follow up ‘Epic Movie’ which was easily one the worst films of 2007, we have ‘The Comebacks’. Spoofing movies hasn’t been working out well recently and some may argue, even with the ‘Scary Movie’ franchise, that it hasn’t worked out at all since ‘Airplane’ and that was almost thirty years ago. So here we are with ‘The Comebacks’ and dang gummit, I though it was funny. There were parts that I actually laughed my ass off during this movie. Now the rest of the movie reviewing public, and the large portion of film watchers in general, have tore this movie a new one, with the lone exception of Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe. Not that I wouldn’t have given this flick a decent review anyway, because I ain’t no bitch or nothing, but it is good not stand alone.

Long time character actor David Koechner plays Lambeau ‘Coach’ Fields, yes it’s a lame joke. As is displayed montage style through narration by Coach Fields long time pal Freddie Wiseman (Carl Weathers – Action Jackson in the HOUSE) Coach Fields is the biggest loser in the history or coaching, coming up lame in football, NASCAR, winter sports... whatever he tries. Lambeau has retired to do other things, but Freddie tracks him down to inform him of a golden opportunity to coach a ragtag bunch in Podunk Texas known as The Comebacks. At the urgings of his wife barb (Melora Hardin) Lambeau packs up his rebellious gymnastically inclined daughter Michelle (Brooke Nevin) and off to Texas they go.

When Lambeau meets his team he immediately dismisses hall of famers Lawrence Taylor, Eric Dickerson and Michael Irvin as Lambeau certainly know talent when he sees it, and he also dismisses a Wahlberg-esque Vince Papaple in one of the movies

funnier scenes. What he’s left with is star running back Aseel Teree (Robert Richard) which the coach incorrectly pronounces ACL Tear, self absorbed superstar Trotter (Jackie Long) who is dating his daughter and is ‘as Black as a Mississippi August night’, a female Eastern Indian kicker picked up off the soccer team where she was Bending it like Beckam, and a Quarterback who cannot hold on to the football and also has a cross dressing sports mad father. Oh, and there’s the mentally challenged African American assistant who pushes around a shopping cart and listens to an I-Pod (Jermaine Williams). Coach Fields has identified the problem with his team right away in that their GPA’s are way too high which is counter productive to being a decent ball player and forces them to sign a contract which will require the to dedicate themselves to being more stupid, among other things. Since this is sports movie at heart, the team will come together and get better, only to splinter apart, but only to come together again to beat an unbeatable foe, The Unbeatables, with the game coming down a last play as the clock ticks down to triple zero.

I have a simple litmus test when it comes to comedies. You would think it’s easy to pass, especially because making me laugh ain’t all that hard, but yet so many comedies fall so woefully short it’s sad. Make me laugh four times. Not smile or giggles, but good hearty laughs. The Comebacks managed to do that. More than four times actually. One of the things that I think helped my appreciation of the comebacks is first, I like sports movies and second I believe I’ve seen every single sports movie that ‘The Comebacks’ is spoofing. ‘The Gridiron Gang’, ‘Stick it’, ‘Fields of Dreams’, ‘Remember the Titans’, ‘Invincible’, ‘The Longest Yard’ are some of the more obvious ones as nary a scene went by when it wasn’t taking a playful jab at some ridiculous sports movie cliché. Sure some of the jokes were the coconut on the head variety and quite a few did miss their mark, but there were also some clever sly jokes thrown in as well. Veteran funny dudes Will Arnette, Dax Shepherd and Frank Caliendo doing his John Madden thing was amusing also.

Yes, it this flick is crude, rude, grossly inappropriate at times, as a lot of these so-called comedies released nowadays are, and yeah, perhaps there was one too many man-on-man love jokes thrown into the fray, but watchagonnado? ‘The Comebacks’ is stupid, and I understand that, but I’m not so sophisticated that I can’t let a little stupidity into my life and allow some rays of low brow humor to shine down here and there every once in a while. The movie made me and Wesley Morris laugh, and since that was what its main goal was, ‘The Comebacks’ qualifies as a success in my book.