Champions
Released Friday 10th of March
Cert: 12A | ★★★★✩

Champions is an English-language remake of the 2018 Spanish film of the same name from multi-award winning Spanish filmmaker Javier Fesser and features performances by a group of actors with a range of disabilities.

In the charming drama-comedy, a basketball coach is put in charge of a team of players with intellectual disabilities.

After being fired from his role as assistant coach on a rising minor league basketball team over his bad tempered outbursts, Marcus (Woody Harrelson) finds himself in even deeper trouble after a drunk-driving incident lands him in front of a judge.

Given the choice between time behind bars or performing 90 days of community service, Marcus agrees to the latter.

Chmapions Credit Focus Features

A scene from Champions (Focus Features)

Hilarity and much soul-searching ensue as the hapless coach is consequently put in charge of training The Friends, a chaotic basketball team composed of players with intellectual disabilities and headed by Johnny (played brilliantly by Kevin Iannucci, an actor with Down syndrome).

Bolstered by some pretty solid performances all around, Champions is almost funnier than it has any right to be. Farrelly and screenwriter Mark Rizzo deliver an uplifting tale of triumph over adversity with a rather charming rom-com subplot featuring a hilarious turn from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia alum Kaitlin Olson as Marcus’ love interest.

The film is peppered with the usual sport movie tropes of endless montages, crushing disappointments and eventual triumph, but Farrelly presents an honest representation of intellectual disability with thoughtful, and unpatronising, sympathy.

And while his new approach certainly feels more politically correct than his earlier output, it still manages be charming. He succeeds in making the audience to laugh with the disabled and not at them.

Prepare for your cockles to be well and truly warmed.