Starring: Will Ferrell and Robert Duval
Director: Jesse Dylan
Rated: PG
IN Kicking and Screaming, Phil Weston (Will Ferrell) is the only child of Buck Weston (Robert Duvall), a widower sports fanatic who owns a sports equipment shop.
As a boy Phil was a hopeless at sport. As an adult Phil owns a vitamin and supplements business.
Phil marries college sweetheart Barbara (Kate Walsh) while Buck marries the much younger Janice (Musetta Vander).
Both couples have children on the same day. Buck’s son Bucky (Josh Hutchinson) is outstanding at soccer. Phil’s son Sam is like his dad.
Buck is the coach of the soccer team and when he trades Sam to the Tigers, Phil volunteers to coach them. He is hopeless at it, but after he recruits a star assistant coach and two outstanding young Italian players, the Tigers prepare for a showdown against Buck’s team in the final.
Kicking and Screaming refers to the transformation Phil undergoes from being a goofy and likeable dad to being a psychopathic soccer coach.
And what brings about this transformation so quickly? Caffeine. Phil gets addicted to coffee and in the process all of his repressed anger emerges in the most extreme of ways.
There are a few fresh ideas in this slapstick comedy, but Kicking and Screaming is a film you can send the children or grandchildren to, confident that, apart from a few crude moments, it has no sex, coarse language or violence.
Its moral line is fine too, telling us that winning is not everything, children are meant to have fun and not be extensions of their parent’s ambitions, and that screaming coaches and parents on the sidelines at children’s sports days are a very ugly breed indeed.
The use of the hand-held camera is overdone here and some scenes do not segue easily, but this light and limited film will keep eight to 13 year-olds entertained for 95 minutes.
