The Comebacks (2007)

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... See full summary »

Director:

Tom Brady

Writers:

Ed Yeager (screenplay), Joey Gutierrez (screenplay),

Stars:

David Koechner, Carl Weathers, Melora Hardin

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
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

Storyline

Lambeau Fields lives a middle-class lifestyle in America along with his wife, Barb, and a gorgeous daughter, Michelle, who he has brought up as a son. Lambeau is a failure and has virtually given up on his career as a football coach. Then his friend, Freddie Wiseman, encourages him to re-enter this field, and he does so by re-locating to Plainfolk in Texas and joins the Heartland State University. It is here he will meet some of the most pathetic players, and quite disillusioned he goes about to find new-comers. He finds a kicker in Jasminder Featherfoot, provided of course, he keeps her involvement secret from the rest of her family. Then he finds Lance Truman, whose drag queen dad has brought him up more like a tom-girl. With these additions and others Lambeau sets forth to include his team in the next Super...Er...Toilet Bowl 2 series, and it is here that he will find that Lance fumbles a lot; Barb is not quite faithful as she seems; he will soon be in jail for Indecent Exposure; ...

---

Plot Keywords:

coach | football | championship | failure | college | 

---

Taglines:

Keep your eye on the ball.

---

Genres:

Comedy | Sport

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

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

Details

Official Sites:

The Fox [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 October 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sports Movie

Filming Locations:

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

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$5,554,594 (USA) (19 October 2007)

Gross:

$13,349,251 (USA) (21 December 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fox Atomic, Tapestry Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min 107 min (unrated)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The coach's name, Lambeau Fields, is a play on Lambeau Field, the home of the Green Bay Packers.

---

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.

---

Connections

Spoofs Invincible (2006)

---

Soundtracks

"Shoot the Runner"
Written by Christopher Karloff and Sergio Pizzorno
Performed by Kasabian
Courtesy of RCA Records
By Arrangement with SONY BMG ENTERTAINMENT

User Reviews

Better than the Friedberg/Seltzer spoofs, but still lacking a lot.

With so many horrible spoof movies, this is sadly a breath of fresh air to the genre. Compared to classics like Airplane or the Naked Gun, this is awful, but compared to recent spoof movies like Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie, this is very clever and original. Don't get me wrong, though, this was not a good movie in any way. I laughed a few times, and there are a few inspired gags, but any pop culture reference falls flat on it's face, as does most jokes in the movie.

Lambeau Fields (David Koechner) was a bad coach in the past, but now he's brought back to teach college football, and this time he'll do a good job. His wife (Melora Hardin) is feeling distant from him and his daughter is dating a football big shot to spite her father. Spoofs of various recent movies come into play, as do a lot of sight gags and nonstop stupidity.

The best parts of the movie are the gags not relying on reference to recent movies. Spoofs of Radio, Rocky, Dodgeball, Friday Night Lights, Invincible and many other sports movies are not funny in the least. It's mainly the smaller gags that get a few laughs, like a bizarre crotch scratching scene, or a chewing tobacco spitting joke. These little throwaway giggles cannot carry the movie, and by the end, it's hard to watch. The last 20 minutes are grueling to sit through.

The characters are surprisingly developed for a sports spoof movie, however, I'm sure the characters were built on clichés from the genre. Nonetheless, they're not too bad. David Koechner can pull lead actor in a movie off. Too bad they gave him so much crummy material to work with. Matthew Lawerence has fine comedic timing in a not always so comedic role as a ballet dancing football player with a cross dressing father. Carl Weathers rounds off the cast, once again playing in a sub-par sports movie (Not the Rocky movies...Happy Gilmore!) Overall, this is a goofy comedy. At times, it's funny, but more often than not, it's just very annoying and predictable.

My rating: * 1/2 out of ****. 90 mins. PG-13 for language, sexual humor and drug humor.