THE AISLE SEAT - "BASEketball"
by Mike McGranaghan
I'm not much of a basketball player, but a lot of my friends are. There's one thing I've always noticed about the game. When enough good players are around, a serious game will no doubt occur. When some bad players are mixed in - or when everyone is tired - people start playing stupid, made-up games like "H-O-R-S-E." Okay, that game is fun for a minute or two (or when you're the only sober person playing against a bunch of drunk people, but I'll let my 4th of July story out of this). I have a feeling that a new, incredibly stupid game is going to be played on courts this summer thanks to the new movie BASEketball. Like the movie, the game is just goofy enough to be briefly entertaining until you realize that you're not having as much fun as you thought.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone - the creators of the hugely successful cartoon "South Park" - star as Coop and Remer, two slacker buddies who invent a game that mixes baseball and basketball. It's all free throws, and the further you are from the basket, the more bases your player can run if you sink the shot. The opposing team, meanwhile, tries to psych you out when you shoot. Nothing is off limits. Miss the shot and you're out. The game starts a neighborhood trend. Then a billionaire tycoon named Denslow (Ernest Borgnine) discovers it and offers Coop and Remer a chance to turn it into a professional sport.
Several years later, the game has swept the nation. Coop and Remer play on Denslow's team (the Beers). He dies, and ownership of the sport switches to Coop. A ruthless businessman (is there any other kind in the movies?) wants to corrupt BASEketball to make money. Since he's played by Robert Vaughn, you know he's no good. His schemes divide the game's inventors. Meanwhile, the boys fight for the affections of a young woman named Jenna (Yasmine Bleeth) who works for one of those charities that grant wishes to terminally ill children. One of her charges is a little boy who idolizes Coop, a fact that would seem to give him an edge were he not so inept.
BASEketball was co-written and directed by David Zucker, part of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker trio that made the Airplane and Naked Gun movies. I remember howling with laughter at those films, but the style has grown old. At first, it got its power from sheer comic surprise. Now it's easier to see the jokes coming. For instance, when Vaughn tells co-star Jenny McCarthy in a sexually suggestive tone that he wants her to come over and "lay some carpet" sometime, you just know that the next scene will have her on her knees laying some carpet. Literally. Zucker tries to freshen the approach by adding a lot more gross-out and adult-oriented humor. That usually works better than the now-familiar Naked Gun stuff.
It doesn't help that Parker and Stone (neither of whom had a hand in writing the film) have been cast in the leads. They may have a sharp satirical sense of humor in the animated TV show, but as performers, they're not the least bit funny. Part of the problem is that Zucker's style of humor relies on a deadpan delivery. Parker and Stone, meanwhile, deliver their lines with a self-knowing wink. They think they're being hysterically funny, when really they're wrecking the very jokes they're supposed to be selling. This is painfully obvious in the final half hour, where the plot is actually taken seriously. First off, we don't need another young-rebels-versus-ruthless-businessman story. Secondly, the movie should be mocking such conventions, not engaging in them. I think the movie wants to poke fun at how show-offishness has eclipsed the athletics of professional sports, but hauling out tired old plot mechanisms isn't the way to do it.
Now that I've told you everything that's wrong with BASEketball, I'm going to tell you what I liked about it: the gags. Although a lot of the movie is lame, Zucker manages to toss in a handful of scenes that made me laugh like crazy. At times, he abandons his trademark style and really goes for the low-down dirty laugh. Every time I would start to give up on it, BASEketball let loose with something riotously funny. Two examples come immediately to mind. One is a vicious parody of those "reality specials" on the FOX network (this one's called "Roadkill: Caught on Tape" and I'll leave it at that). The other is a foul-mouthed version of "Unsolved Mysteries" in which guest star Robert Stack uses words I have never heard him use before.
I wish more of this comic inventiveness had been included in the movie. It might have made this a must-see comedy instead of just a mildly amusing one. This is the kind of film that I find painlessly diverting to watch, although I wouldn't go so far as to recommend it. BASEketball isn't all that good, although any movie that has sportscaster Bob Costas expressing his excitement to fellow commentator Al Michaels by exclaiming "feel these nipples!" isn't all bad either.
(
1/2 out of four)
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