DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story

Dodgeball. Not your typical movie sport, eh? But newcomer writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber has based his sleeper hit comedy on this well-known but rarely actually experienced pass-time. I, for one, have never played dodgeball as it is depicted in his film. But that might be because, though I'm sure there are people who take the game seriously, Thurber clearly does not. Which is a relief - because this movie could never have worked if it had taken itself seriously, even in the slightest.

As idiotic villain White Goodman, Ben Stiller thankfully tries something different, after the abysmally predictable Along Came Polly of this January. But thankfully his part is not overwritten and he doesn't steal the limelight from the real lead, Vince Vaughn, who has a simple role but still manages to make it as funny as Stiller's.

The plot, or rather the excuse for having lots of people get hit in the face by balls, traffic and (ingeniously) wrenches, follows Vaughn and his friend's attempt at saving their gym by entering a dodgeball tournament, which has a final cash price of $50,OOO. Stiller's evil chain of body-building complexes is planning to buy them out if they don't pay off their debts within the next month, so, with the help of an insane dodgeball veteran (played by a wheelchair-bound, scene-stealing Rip Torn) they make their way through the tournament until inevitably facing off with Stiller's team in the final.



Torn's constantly amusing training techniques include dodging traffic and avoiding an onslaught of wrenches - that alone, plus the fact that he drinks his own urine, is enough to make him one of the funniest comedy characters in recent memory. I was predicting Stiller to steal the movie - but boy was I wrong.

There are a few decent cameos throughout, mostly funny, though not up to the standard of Anchorman (which also featured Vaughn and Stiller, as two of the many such cameoers). But what DodgeBall lacks in suprises, it makes up for in sheer lunacy. Thought dodgeball was just a painful sport devoid of any sort of fun? After the film, you'll feel different - but then you'll actually play it, and you'll realise that it is nowhere near as insane as the action in this film unless you find ways to make it insane. But the long discussion on the sport itself and the many different ways you can play it can wait, at least until it makes a comeback and becomes the new 'big thing' - which could actually happen. Maybe.

**** / *****.