Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

(On DVD, August 2006) Oh my: this is a juvenile, frat-boy glorification comedy that never hesitates to go for the cheap gag and the gross sight. And yet, I pretty much loved it from beginning to end. Good supporting characters, inspired lunacy, some shamelessness and plenty of unpretentious attitude can carry you a long way, and so Dodgeball manages to suceed despite characters you would almost certainly hate in real life. The way that “dodgeball” is formalized with rules that would never make up a real sport and then hyped up as a Vegas sport is particularly endearing. The ending does fall apart, but that’s part of the fun: This film has one of the most outrageous good-guys-win-everything finale I can recall, but look closely at the screen and you can see the winking deus ex machina. There isn’t much more to say about the film though: Instantly accessibly, instantly forgettable. But it is funny enough.