IN-DEPTH SUMMARY
Champions feature the dynamic “Now You See Me” star Woody Harrelson in a light-hearted, emotional rollercoaster as he finds his way as an aspiring professional basketball coach in hopes of finally reaching the NBA. The movie opens with Harrleson naked in his bed having just indulged in what would most simply be interpreted as a “hook up” with a Shakespeare performer he met on Tinder. The two have a pointless dispute as the audience receives character development and learns about the two characters’ lives. We learn Harrelson is in the Minor Leagues, assistant coaching a J-League team in the depressing city of Des Moines, Iowa. Later on, in a game, he eventually loses his temper and shoves his head coach following a disagreement in a huddle. Obviously, he gets fired and decides the best course of action is to drown his sorrows in alcohol like most people do. Then getting in the car, he runs into a cop car and relieves two fugitives from potential jail time, as the cops were interrogating them on the sidewalk. Naturally, he gets a DUI and his dreams of fame and fortune in the NBA seem to be immediately shattered. He is slapped with 90 days of community service, coaching a group of intellectually disabled people how to play basketball, pending the bond made by the coach he had a dispute.
THE FRIENDS
He coaches this incredibly dysfunctional team called the Friends, which is a team constructed of members with Down syndrome. Each member has their own characteristics and we learn about them as they each introduce themselves along with their respective ability, or inability to play basketball. Coach meets the star player of the group, Darius, who turns out, lost a family member to someone drunk driving, and as a result refuses to play for Coach. So, the coach begins practice and as luck would have it, learns that one of the players’ sister is the woman he hooked up with in the opening scene. The awkward tension resolves itself when the two bond over their player/brother’s love for carpool karaoke, and the two begin to hook up some more. As the team gets better and better, the two get closer and closer until he comes to his hookup’s home, to have dinner with the sister of his player. They get into an argument following the uncovering of the fact that her brother was planning on leaving and moving into a home with a bunch of his friends. His sister becomes enraged at this idea, unable to face the looming reality that she cannot hide her ability to become a functioning member of society behind her Down syndrome brother. It breaks her down to the point where she refuses to meet with the coach again, and it becomes awkward once more between the two. However, they resolve their differences eventually over the many wins the team begins to have as they develop their skills.
A wrinkle occurs when the coach runs into one of his assistants on the J-League team that has an uncle in the NBA. Using this assistant for his uncle, Coach asks if he could hook him up with a job placement, the assistant says yes, in hopes of finally making a real friend in the coach, but his uncle does not want him. Coach then acts as if he doesn’t even know his assistant as if he was only a method of achieving success and nothing more, destroying the assistant’s feelings and allowing the coach to finally realize he really does not have anyone in his life that he could consider a friend. An emotional turnaround occurs and he asks the assistant if he would like to be an assistant coach for “The Friends,” and of course, being that he wants to be literal friends with the coach, jumps at the opportunity. The two begin to bond and really develop the teams’ skills and make it to the championship of the disabled league where the team faces the “Lions.” They eventually lose in the final moments of the game but are happy with the fact that one of the members made his first backward shot in the thousands of attempts he previously had taken. The coach realizes the innocent happiness and joy that the team has in losing and realizes the importance of friendship and how it creates joy rivaling the joy from winning. The End.
REVIEW
Champions are simplistic, emotional, intelligent, and plain fun. I found myself on the verge of happy tears and sad tears at multiple points in the film, from learning about the dad leaving one of the Down syndrome kids’ homes at birth, to the cussing out of the coach by the single female player. Confidence and intelligence radiate off all of these individuals, forming an intense contrast in the stereotypical view of people with this disability, creating an emotional bond to each of the characters in the film that other movies have trouble creating. I found myself emotionally connected to each one, empathetically interacting with them, and laughing when they laugh, feeling sullen when they appear to feel that way. It is a feel-good movie that will really change how a person views people with this disability. It defines friendship in a creative and introspective fashion that really allures the viewer, and allows them to forget how long they have been watching the movie. I loved it, and my girlfriend did too. Overall: 7.8/10.
