Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Dodgeball is a very funny comedy starring Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Gary Cole, Jason Bateman, Rip Torn, Alan Tudyk, Justin Long, Stephen Root, and Chris Williams, about a gym owner, Peter La Fluer, who owns a beaten down, failing gym called “Average Joe’s”. The corporate gym across the street, GloboGym, owned by White Goodman, wants to buy Average Joe’s to make the space into a parking lot for GloboGym’s many members. Peter and his ragtag, yet loyal band of gym members have 30 days to come up with $50,000 to save Average Joe’s from being shut down, and they come up with the plan of joining the Las Vegas Dodgeball Invitational Tournament. And hilarity ensues. 

Dodgeball is an excellent movie for a number of reasons. The characters are just fantastic. One of my favorite movie characters ever is in this movie. The color commentator Pepper Brooks, played by Jason Bateman. The spaced out, surfer-like, former dodgeball player that does the color commentary of the dodgeball tournament along with Cotton McKnight throughout the movie has some of the best lines throughout the film.  

And there are plenty of good lines to go around all throughout the movie. It’s a highly quotable film. From the training sequences where Patches is throwing wrenches at them in the gym to the actual dodgeball games where they’re dancing instead of playing dodgeball, there’s hardly any time to stop laughing while you’re watching this movie.  

But like some of my other favorite comedies, it knows what it is. It’s a stupid kind of funny. It’s a satirical, absurd kind of funny. It’s not an intellectual comedy. It isn’t trying to be. White is a blatantly villainous bad guy. Almost to a parodic amount. But it’s in conjunction with Peter’s character playing off of him, making Peter seem even more like the cool-headed anti-hero that he’s supposed to be. 

So, yeah, go and see Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. It’s not only inspirational and educational, but it’s so funny, you’ll have to call a timeout. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…