Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Reviewed by FRANCESCA RUDKIN

(Herald rating: * * *)



Dodgeball is so ridiculous it's funny - a game in which you smash each other in the face with red balls. It's like the game you were never allowed to play at school. (Actually, it was kind of the way I played netball ... )

This is the first time a film has been made about dodgeball, and most probably the last, but there is no doubt that the game is the star of the film. Ben Stiller (who also produced) would probably feel differently; once again he dresses in outlandish outfits and talks in a silly voice to get our attention as White Goodman, owner of Globo Gym, motto "We're better than you and we know it."

His nemesis is the laidback Peter LaFleur (Vaughan), owner of Average Joes, a gym across the road from Globo Gym that attracts quite a different clientele - the kind that doesn't look quite so good in their lycra. Yes, this is a comedic look at gym culture in the 21st century as well as a sports film.

La Fleur isn't the best businessman. He's more concerned with caring for his clients' spiritual wellbeing than pectorals, and when lawyer Kate Veatch (Stiller's wife Christine Taylor) turns up telling him to pay his mortgage or sell up he settles for the easy option of selling.

That is, until Goodman decides La Fleur's gym would make a great carpark and Average Joe's adorable loser clients convince him to fight for the gym by playing in the high-stakes International Dodgeball Open Championships in Las Vegas.

The Average Joes are trained by rather unusual methods, which include a lesson in dodging traffic by dodgeball legend Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn), and once in Vegas they come up against the Purple Cobras of Globo Gym.

Stiller knows how to make the most of a good cameo. Cracking us up with their appearances are Chuck Norris, Lance Armstrong, David Hasselhoff, and William Shatner.

Even though the film loses pace near the end, it's a cheap and enjoyable laugh - and I'm thinking of taking up dodgeball.

CAST: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Rip Torn

DIRECTOR:Rawson Marshall Thurber

RUNNING TIME:96 Mins Rating: M (sexual references)

SCREENING: Village and Berkeley Cinemas from Thursday