Review: Champions
DVD & Blu-ray: Champions (2023)
Marcus (Woody Harrelson) is a minor-league basketball coach whose volatile temper gets the better of him in the middle of a game when he pushes over a fellow coach.
The incident is widely reported across all forms of media, before Marcus gets even deeper into trouble when he rear ends a cop car and is sent to court for DUI charges.
Narrowly avoiding a spell in prison, he is sentenced to 90 days community service. This is focused around coaching a basketball team comprised of young adults with learning differences and disabilities. The team has never won a game and Marcus has no real interest in doing anything to change that, just wanting to get his 90 days over as quickly as possible.
I’m sure you can all work out what happens from that point on.
Despite an entirely predictable narrative, Champions shines in its depictions of its characters. Speaking as a teacher at a college for 16-25 year old S.E.N.D students, it was an absolute joy to see and recognise the interactions and humour between everyone in the basketball team.
While a layer of schmaltz is inevitable in movies such as this, director Bobby Farrelly never lays it on too thick, throwing in some sharp witted and very well observed comedy moments that literally had me laughing out loud.
Champions is a feel good movie for the whole family to enjoy, with emotional beats in it that will elicit a few tears, raise some hackles, and most certainly get a lot of laughs.
‘COLLECTOR’S EDITION’ EXCLUSIVE DELETED SCENES AND BONUS FEATURES TO OWN ONLY ON DIGITAL*, BLU-RAYTM & DVD:
• 12 Deleted Scenes
• Keeping it Friendly – Director Bobby Farrelly, Woody Harrelson, and the rest of the cast share how they became involved in CHAMPIONS, as well as the importance of representation in the film.
• Woody and the Team – Every team needs a good leader – here we explore how Woody Harrelson filled that role on and off screen.
• Casting the Friends
• Feature Commentary with director Bobby Farrelly *available via iTunes only
Review by Dave from a disc kindly supplied by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment via Fetch Publicity.
