

Movie review: 'Rebound'

1 star (out of four)

Basketball, to me, is one of the world's great sports and pastimes. It consumed much of my youth on the playgrounds. It still entertains me mightily on TV.

So why are so many basketball movie comedies, including Martin Lawrence's latest vehicle, "Rebound," so bewilderingly bad? Why are they so foolish, so poorly written and so slackly made, even compared to most other sports movies? What is the explanation for "Celtic Pride," "Like Mike," "Eddie," "Space Jam" and "Air Bud?" ("White Men Can't Jump" is the exception that proves the rule.)

"Rebound" is only the latest examplebut it's one of the worst. In it, Lawrence, a comic movie bad boy taking a rare family-movie break, plays Roy McCormick, a Bobby Knight-style egomaniac hothead college coach, booted from the NCAA (here renamed the NCBA) for gross misbehavior (he kills another team's animal mascot). In an attempt to redeem himself, on the advice of sleazy manager Tim Fink (Breckin Meyer), the coach takes a job with the only team that seems to express interest: the Mount Vernon Smelters, a junior high school squad.

Coach Roy takes on a team so bad that not only can't they win a game, they can't score a point. After this rocky beginning , however, he has them competing for the state championship; along the way, of course, Coach McCormick somehow becomes a kinder, gentler Roy, a paragon of cage virtues who realizes that helping young kids turn from hopeless doofuses, school jokes and outcasts into potential state champs is not only richly rewarding but easier than it looks. He also learns that being naughty isn't half as much fun as being nice, especially if your star player, Keith (Oren Williams) has a beautiful mom, Jeannie Ellis (Wendy Raquel Robinson) who counsels at Mount Vernon and initially won't give Roy the time of day.

"Rebound" is a misbegotten mix of crude jokes, ludicrous fantasies and bland sentimentality. Lawrence has some funny moments, not only as Coach Roy but as the charlatan Preacher Don, who "blesses the games." But Lawrence's usually R-rated shtick seems constrained by the PG format. This is one movie that might actually be improved with more bad taste. (I certainly felt like swearing as I watched it.)

And though the kids are a likable if misused crewand leading lady Robinson (of "The Steve Harvey Show") a peach in a bad part, "Rebound" does them all in. The fact that "Rebound" has good actors and a professional veneer, courtesy of director Steve Carr of "Daddy Day Care" and "Dr. Dolittle 2," only makes it more obnoxious.

Of course, we're dealing with a fantasy here, and not one from which we should demand any "Hoop Dreams" realism or "Hoosiers" drama. But sense and logic seem to have been banished here, along with Coach Roy. Are we supposed to believe, for example, that a coach who has won three NCAA (excuse me, NCBA) titles couldn't, even after being banned from organized college ball, get a job anywhere in the nation except at a failing junior high whose five players recruited him by fax machine?

What about the notion of a junior high team that not only can't win a game but can't score a pointand whose amazing turnaround is accomplished by more drills and the aid of a young female 'hood "enforcer" and a six-footer who can't shoot or rebound? Or the idea that the NCBA would schedule Coach Roy's reinstatement hearing at the same time as the state championship game that got him reinstated.

Improbabilities pile up like clowns crammed in a Volkswagen. Coach Roy's amazing success story, which is, after all, just a run for the junior high championship, rates coverage not only on TV's "The Best Damned Sports Show Period" but also on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Then there's the writer's antic idea of having a self-appointed Smelters color commentator team that consists of two students and a pocket tape recorder. We're lucky the writers and director didn't push instead for Marv Albert and Steve Kerrbecause with this budget, they might have gotten them.

Now that this year's NBA finals are over, hard-core basketball junkies might believe they'll find some kind of diversion in "Rebound," along with die-hard Lawrence fans or Robinson partisans. Be forewarned: You'll probably only enjoy this movie if you if you make a determined effort to forget everything you ever knew about basketball, junior high and Martin Lawrence.


Directed by Steve Carr; written by Jon Lucas, Scott Moore (story by William Wolff, Ed Decter, John J. Strauss); photographed by Glen MacPherson; edited by Craig Herring; production designed by Jaymes Hinkle; music by Teddy Castellucci; produced by Robert Symonds. A Twentieth Century Fox release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:27. MPAA rating: PG (for mild language and thematic elements).

Roy McCormick/Preacher Don - Martin Lawrence

Jeanie - Wendy Raquel Robinson

Tim Fink - Breckin Meyer

Mr. Newirth - Horatio Sanz

Keith Ellis - Oren Williams

Larry Burgess Sr. - Patrick Warburton

Principal Walsh - Megan Mullally

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