The Comebacks (2007)

Director:

Tom Brady

Writers (WGA):

Ed Yeager (screenplay) &
Joey Gutierrez (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

19 October 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Sport

Tagline:

Keep your eye on the ball.

Plot:

A comedy that spoofs the inspirational sports movies, The Comebacks tells the story of an out-of-luck coach, Lambeau Fields, who takes a rag-tag bunch of college misfits and drives them towards the football championships. In the process, this life-long loser discovers that he is a winner after all by redeeming himself, saving his relationship with his family and friends, and finding that there is indeed, no "I" in "team"!

Plot Keywords:

Coach | Football | Championship | Sports Team | Failure

Cast

David Koechner	...	Lambeau "Coach" Fields
Carl Weathers	...	Freddie Wiseman
Melora Hardin	...	Barb Fields
Matthew Lawrence	...	Lance Truman
Brooke Nevin	...	Michelle Fields
Nick Searcy	...	Mr. Truman
George Back	...	Buddy Boy
Noureen DeWulf	...	Jizminder Featherfoot
Jesse Garcia	...	Jorge Juanson
Jackie Long	...	Trotter
Robert Ri'chard	...	Aseel Tare
Martin Spanjers	...	Randy Randinger
Jermaine Williams	...	IPod
Finesse Mitchell	...	Titans Coach
Will Arnett	...	Mailman

Also Known As:

Sports Movie (UK) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 on appeal for crude and sexual content throughout and some drug material

Runtime:

USA:84 min | Germany:88 min | 107 min (unrated version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R (original rating) | USA:PG-13 (re-rating on appeal) | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-11 | Germany:12 | New Zealand:R13 | Australia:MA | Netherlands:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

California State University - 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton, California, USA

Company:

Fox Atomic

Trivia:

Not screened for critics.

Quotes:

Vince: Hey coach. Name is Vince. I'm just a bartender from Philly whose only dream is to play ball. It's all I got left after I lost my job teaching, and my wife left me. Like my alcoholic father used to say before he passed on, "A man can only take so much failure!" I'll give you everything I got. What do you say coach?
Lambeau "Coach" Fields: I say you can add "Did not make the football team" to your list of woes.

Movie Connections:

Spoofs Gridiron Gang (2006)

Soundtrack:

K's #1

Another black eye for the spoof genre

The spoof genre, which has lacked creativity and humor for some time already, gets spat upon yet again by hacks with no talent. No point, no fun, no originality; just a few cheap bucks for the film makers.

It takes more than just referencing some recent movies and giving characters double-meaning names to be satire; to make people laugh. Any clod can pick up a cam-corder, and have some bad-acting buddies in cheap costumes imitate somebody. Since the genre being targeted this time is inspirational sports movies, there are a few lame references thrown out to movies of that type: the jokes are so weak the characters actually have to emphasize the references in various ways, to get you to laugh hysterically. It doesn't work.

That's not comedy. However, the same old worn out sophomoric "jokes" ripped off from a middle school washroom (done even more blandly than usual) are all here. If that's not enough, there's a running "gag" of a bus running somebody over. So funny, right? Also, one pathetically poor scene does more product placement than Michael Bay; again with the same unfunny results. A musical bit flops miserably. Pity Carl Weathers, once Apollo Creed in the Rocky series, now stuck with roles in swill like this.

Lousy beyond words. Watching a snail run the marathon would be less tedious than watching this film is. Probably a lot funnier, too.