The Ringer film review

certificate_12A

THE RINGER

If there were an Olympic competition for film underachievement then there's little doubt that The Ringer would win the Gold medal, and by quite some distance too. An idea just about good enough for a three-minute sketch is given the full-length treatment in this latest Farrelly Brothers production, which bears all of their comedy hallmarks but little of the wit and touch that made some of their best films - There's Something About Mary, The Perfect Catch and even Stuck on You - memorably amusing. This is bargain basement stuff which suffers from a cheap script and cheap values and provides only meagre and very occasional laughs.

Johnny Knoxville (of Jackass fame, and impressive in last year's Grand Theft Parsons) produces a performance of sorts as Steve, a regular guy with a requisite heart of gold and an unscrupulous uncle (Brian Cox) who is deep in gambling debt. When Steve also finds himself in a financial black hole, the two of them come up with an unlikely scam: if Steve can pretend he is mentally challenged and therefore eligible for the upcoming Special Olympics, then there's a fortune to be made at the bookies.

Whether or not what happens over the next ninety minutes is morally inoffensive and just plain wrong or not, one thing is for certain: it sure isn't funny. Knoxville adapts his best 'special' persona and is forced to demean himself in a series of increasingly tiresome escapades. The political correctness issue is treated head-on: a recurring theme in the Farrelly Brothers collection, and here a number of participants at the Olympics are played by lesser-abled actors. Admirable though they are, their efforts can't save what amounts to an embarrassing farrago which echoes hollowly through a silent auditorium.

There is of course a desultory romance between Steve and one of the Olympic officials, and Brian Cox wanders in and out periodically and uncomfortably. The production values are shabby, giving the impression that the Olympics take place on a school running track, and although there may be one or two other diversions employed to prevent the whole thing from running out of steam, it's more than likely that most audiences aren't going to care.

Paul Hurley