Review: Semi-Pro

Will Ferrell’s impersonations are usually inspired, except in “Semi-Pro,” where his Will Ferrell impersonation is wickedly off the mark. Debut director Kent Alterman, moonlighting from his job as financier-distributor New Line Cinema’s Executive Vice-President of Production proves himself to be something less than an Adam McKay (Ferrell’s director and co-writer on the memorable “Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy” and “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby” and the forthcoming “Step Brothers”), which often leaves Ferrell center frame improvising improvidently around the not-very-entertaining hijinks of the Flint Tropics, a failed ABA basketball team in the 1970s as the league’s about to shut down. While the bit with a loving fan of Woody Harrelson’s player character being so in love with him he wants to watch him have sex with Maura Tierney hits some notes, there’s nothing in the movie to match “Anchorman”‘s moment with Steve Carell intoning, “I love lamp!” or the post-credits scene of “Talladega Nights” where Ricky Bobby’s two boys explain what we’ve seen and literary post-modernism to boot. Instead we get jokes with Ferrell being afraid of animals just outside the frame. Groan. With Andre Benjamin, Will Arnett and in a painful waste of his talents, Jackie Earle Haley (“Little Children”) as a stoner fan. 89m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Ray Pride)