Champions!

 Champions! Directed by Bobby Farrelly, written by Mark Rizzo based on the book Campeones. Cast, Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson, Matt Cook, Ernie Hudson, Cheech Marin, Mike Smith, Scott Van Pelt, Jalen Rose, Madison Tevlin, Joshua Felder, Kevin Iannucci, Ashton Gunning, Matthew Von Der Ahe, Tom Sinclair, James Day Keith, Alex Hintz, Casey Metcalfe and Bradley Edens.

Marcus Marakovich is an assistant coach for the Iowa Stallions. Hooks up with this chick Alex from Tinder and tells her to leave afterwards he has a big game to worry about. After disagreeing multiple times he shoves the head coach Phil and is told to leave. Frustrated from how everything went down he goes out drinking and then went driving home hit a police vehicle. After being arrested he is bailed out by Phil and told he was fired by the owners. He goes to court and was offered 90 days of community service or 18 months prison time. He decides to take the community service (I think we all would lol) Marcus is told he will be coaching a team of adults with learning disabilities. He meets up with Julio the rec center manager and then meets his team. Johnny is the standout social guy who gives him the run down. Darius who seems to be a star say he won't play for Marcus. Marlon is like a walking Wikipedia. Cody and Benny both seem to have good abilities to play the game. Showtime is great. He only shoots the ball backwards and misses but celebrates every time. When Marcus asked has he ever made the shot Marlon lets him know in the 5 years he has never hit the rim. Knowing he has a long road he checks out after the first practice and begins walking home. He is picked up by Johnny and his sister who happens to be Alex. 

At the second practice he starts trying to run drills with the squad. He explains how to run the pick and roll. How it is his favorite play and how it gives him a hard on. After telling Johnny he needs to be on Blair like a statue when he tells him to roll Johnny said he couldn't. He said statues don't move. Marlon asked if Marcus had a hard on and he said no as a matter of fact its disappeared. Marlon told him he needed to get it checked out lol. He ask Darius to play with them again and again he tells him no. They have their first road game and get back injured player Consentino. The team takes a public bus to the game but gets kicked off after multiple problems caused. After a few ideas arise, Johnny calls his sister who has a traveling Shakespeare RV. The team convince her to take them for away games. Johnny has become more attached to Marcus and invites him to dinner. Everything seems to be going well until Marcus brings up how Johnny is going to be moving into a home with 3 others from the the team causing his sister to get upset. After leaving the house Alex follows him and says they should stop seeing each other. 

Johnny no longer wants to play for Marcus and keeps giving him the stink eye. Benny hasn't been able to make it to the games because of his boss and Darius still wont play for Marcus. During their next game Marcus ask Johnny to get in and he says no. During halftime Consentino tells him that his sister is a grown woman and can sleep with whoever she wants to. Also that the whole team knew about it and he isn't playing for Marcus but for the team. After the pep talk Johnny wants to play again. Marcus has asked for help from Sonny whos uncle is an NBA manager for a job. After finding out that Sonnys uncle doesn't like him he ask why act like everything was going great and Sonny said to be friends. When asked why again he said because you looked like you needed a friend. Later after thinking about it Marcus showed up at the Iowa school and asked Sonny to be his assistant manager. After finding out their team won and made it to the semi-finals Benny asked his boss for the time off to play. He gets fired but is happy because he really wanted to play. Marcus is out eating and Phil shows up. He explains how he used to coach Darius and how he was going to recruit him but then he had an accident. Marcus goes to Darius home to let him know he understands why he won't play for him. It is because he was hit by a drunk driver. After winning the semi finals Darius tells Marcus he will play for them and that he needs to forgive the woman who hit him. 

Before getting ready to leave for the finals Marcus gets an offer to be third assistant coach for Seattle in the NBA. After telling Alex she lets him know they are only using him to get his "feel good story" to cover up a recent scandal they are going through. Johnny gets upset because good guys don't leave. And then the team finds out they don't have the money to go to Canada for the Special Olympic finals. Trying to figure it out Marcus came up with the idea to blackmail Bennys boss over firing him. Now the team is off to Canada for the finals. The team still upset is not doing well and at halftime Marcus tells them look to go out there and play that takes bravery. And to have bravery means you're a champion. Telling them that how they deal with ignorant people daily and push through it makes them brave which makes them champions. Tells Consentino that he isn't sure if she was brave or batshit crazy which she laughs about. After the talk he tells Johnny to get on the court but Johnny said he isn't a champion yet. Johnny goes into the stands to tell his sister he was going to move in with the other guys. They get back on the court and start paying like a team. 

With the final seconds left Marcus calls a time out and proceeds to say the last play needs to go to Darius of which Sonny tells him he is wrong. After about losing his mind he realizes this is what he did. He agrees with Sonny and decides to go with Johnny uses the pick and roll. When they go to make the play Showtime yells "I'm open" and Johnny passes the ball to him. Showtime turns and shoots the ball and it hits the board, bounces on then off the rim. Showtime missed the shot. Marcus stunned about what happened but can't figure out why his team is celebrating. They explain how Showtime hit the rim. They tell the coach how they are already winners and Champions! Marcus turns down the NBA job to stay with The Friends. He does accept a local college coaching job. 

I love this movie. As of this writing it is my favorite movie of 2023. I think this is what they wanted when they made Rebound. From the writing to the acting. It was really well done. My favorite scene which for some reason I didn't mention above was they get Johnny to take a shower. Johnny is afraid of water. It get a 4.5 out of 5 for me. I will get it when it comes out on Blu-Ray or 4K. Right now you can stream it on Peacock. If you like this review please hit the follow button on this blog page, share this blog page and leave a comment. Whether about this movie/ your favorite sports movie or a movie you would like for me to review.