Kicking & Screaming

Milquetoast vitamin salesman Phil Weston (Will Ferrell) has spent his life in the shadow of his fiercely competitive father Buck (Robert Duvall), who, between bouts of macho posturing and ritual humiliation, coaches the championship-winning Gladiators soccer team. When Buck trades his own grandson (and Phil’s son) to the league’s bottom club, the Tigers, Phil assumes coaching duties for this group of hapless misfits –  sorry, under-achievers. To help whip them into shape, he recruits real-life legendary American Football coach Mike Ditka, who brings with him his gridiron ethic and a pair of Italian protégés, if no discernible acting talent. Spurred on by his newfound addiction to caffeine, Phil mutates into a monstrous bully, his team starts winning and the stage is set for a showdown with the Gladiators that’s all about the sins of the father and nothing to do with football. Too formulaic to be anything more than passably entertaining, this ‘Bad News Bears’ knockoff barely manages that, scrapping by on Ferrell’s goofy charms and the sight of him and Duvall going at it over a game of Swingball.