THE COMEBACKS - A Spoof of Sports Movies That Tries To Spoof a Spoof of Sports Movies

The Comebacks (2007) *
dir. Tom Brady
Starring: David Koechner, Carl Weathers

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A nerdy water boy looks up earnestly at the coach and offers him a rim job. An expression of concern crosses the coach’s face. The water boy quickly allays the coach’s fears by pulling a dripping sponge out of a bucket and further explaining how he will wash the rims of the coach’s car. The coach, understandably (since this exchange is in full view of the entire football team) breathes a sigh of relief.

If the abovementioned sounds the least bit funny, then The Comebacks will be a movie made in Heaven for you since it is laden, wall-to-celluloid-wall, with amusing “gags” just like it.

The Comebacks is yet another in a long line of scattershot screen humour that began with Airplane and continued up to and including pictures such as Date Movie and the very recent Meet the Spartans. However, what makes this kind of spoofy humour work is when it is presented with skill and precision. Most importantly, it needs to actually be funny.

The Comebacks is anything but funny. It’s boring, painful, stupid and for its 107 minute running time (the unrated dvd version is unmercifully longer than the theatrical version) all one can do is look open-mouthed and wonder how and/or why it was ever made. One also spends an inordinate amount of time looking at the clock and noticing one’s life tick away as this utterly reprehensible piece of fecal matter continues to unspool.

Not that it matters, but The Comebacks tells the story of a loser coach and a team of losers and how they eventually win. Sound familiar? The unconventional methods utilized by the coach include watching man-on-man hardcore pornography and encouraging his lily-white losers to be “bad”. Ha-ha! I’m still busting a gut.

While it tells this “story”, we are treated to lots of bits attempting to spoof contemporary sports movies like Friday Night Lights, We Are Marshall, Radio and other inspirational gridiron dramas.

The Comebacks reaches its nadir, however, when it resorts to spoofing Dodgeball.

Dodgeball is already a spoof.

It’s also funny and good – neither of which are attributes that The Comebacks is possessed with.

The movie was written and directed by Tom Brady, the auteur behind Rob Schneider’s The Hot Chick. This should tell you everything you need to know.

By the way, I love stupid comedies – however, I expect them to not only be stupid, but funny.