Farrelly Brothers lite is kinda alright! (The Ringer (DVD))

Name: Ailran

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Product:	The Ringer (DVD)
Date:	18.04.06 (219 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A nice little romantic comedy... yes it is!

Disadvantages: Doesn't really hit as hard as it should have done.

No doubt inspired in part by the shock events of the 2000 Paralympic games, where it turned out that the supposedly ‘intellectually’ challenged members of the Spanish basketball team included students, a lawyer and an accountant amongst them and were anything but disabled, the Ringer is Johnny Knoxville’s crude and non PC comedy based around his characters attempts to get into the special olympics by faking a disability.

Knoxville, once of the stupid stunt show Jackass, is now trying to become a serious actor, well serious acting wise, he still concentrates on comedy roles (Dukes of Hazzard) where the knockabout style he perfected on Jackass can still be utilised appropriately. The Ringer certainly fits into that kind of style and it uses his talent suitably well.

Steve Barker is bored, his job isn’t that interesting and he wants a promotion, a challenge. He goes to his boss and puts forward his case, explaining how long he has been to the company and that thinks he is ready for more responsibility now. Surprisingly his boss agrees and his first job at his new level is to go and fire Stavi, the lovable old man who is the janitor for the company. Steve tries hard but he just cannot do it, his solution though is to persuade Stavi to leave by offering him a better-paid job as his apartments gardener! Even worse he promises Stavi that the job includes medical benefits, something he comes to regret as Stavi manages to lose his three middle fingers in an unfortunate lawnmower accident. Faced with a bill of $28,000 to get the fingers sown back on again Steve knows he cannot let Stavi and his four children down, but how is he going to raise that sort of money before the now frozen fingers deteriorate to much?

Ringing through his list of family members to borrow money off Steve gets to his Uncle Gary (Brian Cox). Why he would ring a man with a big gambling problem, someone who is more likely to borrow then lend show the desperation he was hitting.
Gary has his own problems, he owes a fortune to a bookie and has to find some way to pay him back quickly. Gary comes up with the idea of entering Steve in the special Olympics and betting against the 6 time winner and out and out favourite, Jimmy, someone the bookie, Paulie, loves and admires.
“You can beat them, you were a track star in high school” Gary says. He reckons that if Steve can pretend to be intellectually challenged he is a shoe in to win!
Question is can Steve go through with this? With the medical bill looming over him Steve reluctantly realises that he has no choice and sets about ‘learning’ how to appear to be ‘intellectually’ challenged.

Will Steve, know known as Jeffy Dohmer, succeed in blending in with the other athletes? Will his uncle’s moneymaking scheme of betting against the supremely confident champion Jimmy work? Will Steve/Jeffy manage to get the girl even though he has told her nothing but lies since he first met her?

The Ringer is a Farrelly Brothers (Something About Mary, Me, Myself & Irene) lite film. Much like their own Stuck On You it sells itself on the non-pc story idea but doesn’t go straight for the jugular like the films that made the Farrellys name. the Ringer has the potential to be horribly tacky or to be outright over the top with its humour. Instead Barry Blaustein (director) & Ricky Blitt (writer) take a generic romantic comedy plot and tack on the intellectually challenged background to it to try and make it a little bit different. What The Ringer ends up as though is a lightweight romantic comedy much like many a high school based romantic comedy like She’s All That. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I enjoyed The Ringer, it just wasn’t exactly what the trailer made it out to be.

There are some very funny scenes in The Ringer, the section where Steve/Jeffy tries to explain what he is doing and why to his newfound friends is hilarious, Stavi’s goodbye wave cannot help bring a smile to your face and Uncle Gary could best be described as a devious idiot whenever he is on screen.
There are a number of subplots to the main romantic comedy & athletic themes that add a bit of an extra dimension to the film, not enough to make this great but enough to stop it being an absolute disaster.

While Knoxville’s acting can only just be described as that the revelation here is that of the intellectually challenged actors, especially Edward Barbenell as Billy, Jeffys room mate. The Ringer turns out to be their showcase as much as it does a Knoxville one. They turn out to be the characters with the real personalities in The Ringer, they are the stars of the film and outshine Knoxville at every turn.
Brian Cox is wonderful as Uncle Gary, though he has very little to do really other than be a nice old guy irascible guy, annoying but deep down you know his heart is there, looking after himself first!
Unfortunately for the love interest Lynn (Katherine Heigl) she has very little to do other than look good (which she does!) and just be there to move the plot along. She never really gets the chance to shine properly or to get a stand out scene to remember her for.

If you like Romantic comedies then The Ringer is certainly worth seeing, it is not a great example of the genre but it is certainly not the worst, and at least tries to be a little bit different from most of the genre.

As I said though the big problem The Ringer has is that it is not what it seems to be in the trailer. It is not the gross out, non-pc comedy you expect and as such the people who probably would have enjoyed it will not have gone to see it and those that did would not have!

As a final comment I called this a Farrelly Brothers light film and in checking some cast details I see that they did produce this film, probably explains why it comes across like that then!

Summary: Not what is says on the box, or trailers in this case.