Kicking and Screaming (2005)
The Cast
Will Ferrell .... Phil Weston
Robert Duvall .... Buck Weston
Mike Ditka .... Mike Ditka
Kate Walsh .... Barbara Weston
Musetta Vander .... Janice Weston
David Herman .... Referee
Robert Patrick Benedict .... Beantown Employee
Martin Starr .... Beantown Customer
Timm Sharp .... Butcher Shop Employee
Alex Borstein .... Obnoxious Hummer Lady
Directed by Jesse Dylan (son of Bob, as well as brother of a Wallflower), Kicking was intended to be a family film about a family that comes together because of organised soccer (or as the Rest of the World correctly calls it, football). Then they signed Will Ferrell to be in the movie, and it evolved from being a family picture into one with potentially traumatic undertones. Just about every other Ferrell movie that he stars in, I have a problem with his performance. The Frat Pack movies where he has extended cameo appearances I usually enjoy because his character is the joke and it's not an hour and a half movie about that joke.
For example, Ferrell's brief performance in Wedding Crashers was humourous, even though just another couple minutes of that character would've been far too dark for that movie. To a lesser extent, part of his role in Old School was quite dark, when he was tranked at the kid's birthday party. What a traumatic experience for the child, to live the rest of their life after having witnessed their father destroy a cherished childhood memory. At one point in Kicking, his character was no more likable than Ron Burgundy was in Anchorman, and that's a problem if you're trying to make the movie family-friendly and his character is supposed to be the hero.
The highlight of the movie was just another example in how far gone Phil (Ferrell) was after he made the bet with his father Buck (Duvall) about the youth soccer teams that they coached. Two of the boys on Phil's team are Italians, but they have to finish the work in their uncle's meat shop before they can play soccer. Since his team is nothing without the Italians, Phil brings his entire team to the meat shop to help with the meat cutting, which would probably turn a lot of children into vegetarians in real life. The resulting scene and how it plays out is pretty much the best part of the entire movie, and that whole sequence is about two minutes long. The rest of the film pretty much revolves around Phil's slow descent into madness, thanks to Mike Ditka getting him hooked on coffee.
David Herman was pretty alright throughout the movie, and it was nice to see Judd Apatow's producing the movie allows him to get his old employees work. You can see Undeclared's Timm Sharp working in the butcher shop, as well as Freaks and Geeks' Martin Starr. Actually, there's a lot of fun bit part players to spot throughout the movie and then IMDB them up to see where you know them from. Musetta Vander, Robert Patrick Benedict, Alex Borstein, check them out. Try not to notice that Robert Duvall is in the movie, I'm sure he'd like that.
There are occasional funny bits throughout the movie, some good dialogue, occasional great scenes. I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone unless they enjoyed watching Will Ferrell act like an asshole to children. Seriously, he shoves down a child which - much like kicking a dog in the movies- usually guarantees the character much deserved hatred. Ferrell pulls off such a naively sweet performance in the beginning of the movie that it's just horrible to watch him turn into an emotionally abusive bastard later on, and barely redeems himself in the end.
1.5 / 5