Church Ball
Grade: |
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Plot Summary:
The downtrodden Mud Lake ward members try to band together to beat the rich Crystal Hills team in the local Church Ball tournament. Much brawling preceded by prayer ensues...Opinion:
The biggest problem with "Church Ball" is that the premise--summarized in the tagline "The Brawl That Begins With Prayer"--has nowhere to go after the opening credits. The idea of normally religious people becoming a little wild when caught up in the competitive spirit of organized sports can be funny...as a one-liner in a stand-up routine, perhaps, but not as the sustaining comedic idea for a 90-minute movie. Once we see the absurdity of church-going brethren fighting (and swearing) before the game even starts--shown in the first five minutes of the movie--where do you take that basic premise from there? "Church Ball" takes it nowhere, unfortunately, and struggles to fill the remaining running time with weak jokes and a hackneyed sports underdog story that everyone’s seen a million times before...
It is interesting that "Church Ball", in the continual effort of LDS films to find a larger audience outside of Utah, removes almost all LDS-specific references from the screenplay--using "congregation" instead of "ward", "Christian" instead of "Mormon", and (most confusingly for LDS audiences) refers to what is clearly a “Primary” teacher as a "Sunday School" teacher. (They slip by making one reference to 'the next prophet' in one line of dialogue, but "Church Ball" is generally successful in being religiously vague…not that there are very many other churches out there that have basketball courts built into their chapels.)
The mistake here is that it is the "Church" part of "Church Ball" that needed the most emphasis. A group of unskilled underdogs that learn to work together as a team and win the "Big Game" at the end has been done time and time again ad nauseum. I knew what was going to happen--so will you. For a movie like this to be successful, it needs to bring something fresh and original to the table--approach the inherently familiar material from a new angle. It's the "Church" part that provided the only hope of turning this tired story into something interesting—and, unfortunately, "Church Ball" puts the "Ball" first and the "Church" second, and the following 85 minutes after the initial comedic premise is established are very dull...
There are a number of poor decisions by the filmmakers that compound the problem, including meaningless subplots that reinforce the notion that the three screenwriters of "Church Ball" were really short on worthwhile ideas. Scenes involving Brother Buckstead's work and a feud with a co-worker are pointless and go nowhere. Likewise, scenes involving the team selling meat or the weird 'romance' between one of the team members and a sister in the ward (who is never properly introduced...). The filmmakers even stoop to—of all things--a fart joke, making it obvious that they were really scraping from the bottom of the barrel for material.
The most spectacularly misconceived section is near the end when Utah Jazz announcers "Hot Rod" Hundley and Mark Eaton make an appearance. Their dialogue and 'play-by-play' is awkward and unfunny, and they openly wonder why they are there.
That's a good question, actually: Why are they there?
It's obvious that the filmmakers threw them into the script without asking that fundamental question: Why would Hundley and Eaton be there announcing a Church basketball game?
The only obvious answer, within the movie’s own universe: since the rich Crystal Hills team has their own bus and cheerleaders, maybe the Crystal Hills guys hired them to announce their basketball games. It might have been funnier, then, (or at least more logical within the context of the movie) to have them be regulars at Church ball games--and be 'homers' for the Crystal Hills team ("Here we are again with Crystal Hills as they start another championship run..."). Instead, we get senseless dialogue about how they'd never been to a Church ball competition before, without explaining why they were there announcing the game in the first place.
If the LDS cinema market is struggling—and it certainly is—you have to look right at the quality of films that it is putting out as the key cause. “Church Ball” is nothing more than a C movie—it’s ‘inoffensive’, certainly, but without having any one element that’s special, enlightening, or brilliant. It’s time to go back to the drawing board…
Content Analysis: (PG)
In an interesting move, the filmmakers include actual swear words (beeped out) instead of just relying on "Mormon swear words" for the 'heated' dialogue during the competitions. A good idea, I believe--"Mormon" swear words aren't inherently funny, but actual (beeped) swear words given the context can be...
In-depth Analysis:
Like all Halestorm movies, "Church Ball" attempts to add in a spiritual message of sorts amid the alleged 'wackiness'. In this case, it is about caring for others in the community...although you still might take issue with the fact that the only reason Brother Buckstead and the other players contact and serve some of the inactives in their ward is because they're trying to recruit them for their team. Motives for service may not matter if the service still gets done, but raises the question of what happens to the other people in the community who aren't basketball players...and presumably got no attention whatsoever. I suppose--from the 'glass is half-full' standpoint--serving some of the people around you is better than serving none, but it would have been stronger if we saw some instances where church members provided service and charity to someone who didn't end up joining the team in the end.
From a plotting perspective: Why not have the Mud Lake team come close, but lose the championship game at the end? This would at least be a little more original direction to take within the sports underdog genre, and could be used to reemphasize the (supposedly) more important lesson that it's not the winning that matters, but the companionship and the service from being a team...
Random Notes & Comments:
1) According to IMDB, the script went through nine drafts before finally making it to the big screen. Another sign that the screenwriters were struggling with how to take the basic premise and turn it into a movie.
2) Another oversight: never explaining why the three tall basketball-playing sons of Charles Higgins (Gary Coleman's character) didn't join the team. I don't know of any rule that says young men under 18 can't play in Church Ball--usually many of them do. If you're going to introduce them even as a red herring, at least come up with some explanation within the movie why only their dad is allowed to play...
