Dodgeball: "that rare thing, funny frat-boy humor"

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MOVIE REVIEW: Dodgeball - A true underdog story

BY DANIEL NEMAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Jun 19, 2004


In "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," the deus ex machina is actually labeled "deus ex machina."

It's the little jokes that score in "Dodgeball," sort of like "Shrek 2," but they score consistently and well. The bigger jokes lie flat, and the movie never actually attempts anything huge and gut-busting.

But the little jokes act like a boxer's jab: annoying us at first, then getting under our skin, and finally leaving us collapsed helpless on the floor.

It is definitely frat-boy humor, but it is that rare thing, funny frat-boy humor. A man named Rawson Marshall Thurber wrote and directed it as his first full-length film, and he seems to have a knack for making people laugh.


He also apparently started a trend. Grown-ups play dodgeball in "Dodgeball," which is part of the joke; it's a made-up game like "BASEketball," which was also fairly funny and which this movie somewhat resembles.

But now, presumably spurred by reports of the movie, adults are actually playing dodgeball. Also kickball. Soon we will have professional tiddlywinks teams and full-contact Chutes and Ladders tournaments.

In "Dodgeball," Vince Vaughn stars as Peter LaFleur, the somewhat broken-down owner of a decidedly broken-down gym, Average Joe's. Across the street is a glitzy, high-tech and thoroughly obnoxious gym run by White Goodman, played by Ben Stiller.

Ordinarily, the appearance of Stiller in a movie is the reddest of red flags, an incontrovertible indication that the movie is going to be visibly straining for laughs that will never come. When Stiller is in a movie, it is usually a sign that the filmmakers think a name like White Goodman is funny, though they won't be able to tell you why.

But that formulation does not take into account the Rawson Marshall Thurber factor. Thurber is apparently funny (he's no James Thurber, but still) and, while he cannot keep Stiller in check, at least he can compensate for him in the rest of the movie.

You have to love a movie, for instance, that has a television channel called ESPN 8 - "The Ocho" - with the motto "If it's almost a sport, we've got it here." Or a sporting event that takes place at the University of Las Vegas Learning Annex. Or a dodgeball team with the motto "Aim low." Or a sports announcer who excitedly says, "Do you believe in unlikeliness?"

Not all of the jokes work, of course. A fairly significant number of them lie bleeding on the screen, and not just ones involving Stiller.

Since the whole point of dodgeball is to hit people with a ball, far too many jokes show people being hit by balls, or wrenches. And because it's dodgeball, far too many jokes are testicular in nature.

No one ever said frat boys were mature.

A few Hollywood Squares-worthy celebrities make cameos with varying success, and it's nice to know that the actress playing the woman who spurns Stiller in favor of Vaughn is actually married to Stiller.

But in the end, it's the silly jokes in "Dodgeball" that pile up until they eventually get to you.