Champions (2023)

Have you seen “The Shiny Shrimps” (2019)? Well this reminded me very much of that comedy effort as Woody Harrelson portrays the disgraced basketball coach “Marcus”. After one altercation too many on the court, he is ordered by a judge to do some community service coaching a group of young children with learning difficulties. Right from the start, he hates the idea. They have precious little team skills, hand-eye co-ordination, and the only one who is any way competent refuses to have anything to do with him. Luckily, “Johnny” (Kevin Iannucci) has a big sister “Alex” (Kaitlin Olson) who manages to get the coach to commit and focus more on the team – and, well you can easily guess the rest. This is one of those life-affirming films that is well written with loads of characters and dry – frequently pretty black – humour. The thing has an inevitability to it, but like the “Shrimps” it’s about inclusion. It’s about making sure everyone gets a chance to take part, to enjoy, to thrive – teamwork, family (meatloaf – yuk!) and a genuine sense of celebration feature increasingly and effectively. It isn’t a film you will remember for long, it’s entirely formulaic – but Harrelson and Iannucci are on good form and I did enjoy it.