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Jackie Moon is the owner, promoter, coach, and star player of the Flint Michigan Tropics of the American Basketball Association (ABA), the worst team in the league. In 1976 before the ABA collapses, the NBA plans to merge with the best teams of the ABA at the end of the season. Only the top four teams will make the move and the worst teams will fold. If the Tropics want to make it to the NBA, Jackie Moon must rally his team and start winning.
2008 · Directed by Kent Alterman · 91 min · Comedy · Screenplay in the scene database · 12 frames
Tagline
Putting the funk into the dunk.
Plot
In 1976, Jackie Moon is a singer who used the profits from his one-hit wonder, "Love Me Sexy", to buy a basketball team in the American Basketball Association (ABA), the Flint Tropics, becoming the owner, head coach, starting power forward, and pre-game announcer. At a team owner's meeting, Alan Ault, the ABA Commissioner, announces a plan to merge the league with the National Basketball Association (NBA), but only four teams will move to the more established league while the rest of the teams would dissolve. The Tropics, the worst team in the league, are in danger of dissolving. Jackie, thinking fast, argues that the teams with the four best records should be merged. Some of the owners agree and vote in favor of Moon's recommendation.
Jackie trades the team's washing machine to the Kentucky Colonels for Ed Monix, a backup point guard who won an NBA Championship with the Boston Celtics, but was mostly benched during the playoffs. Meanwhile, Jackie owes Dukes, an unemployed hippie $10,000 after Dukes scored a shot from the halfway line, and the large check Jackie provided was fake. The Commissioner reveals that in addition to finishing in the top four, the Tropics will also need at least 2,000 fans at every remaining home game. Jackie begins to stage extremely desperate halftime show stunts in order to boost attendance, including wrestling a live bear and free corn dogs for the audience should the Tropics score over 125 points. Monix becomes fed up with Moon's antics which has caused them to lose a series of games and when Clarence calls Monix out as someone who was benched during the playoffs, Monix throws his championship ring at Clarence, saying he will never play in the NBA. After a brush with the law and reconnecting with his ex-girlfriend, Lynn, Clarence urges Monix to coach the Tropics. Monix agrees to the position much to Moon's dismay. Monix trains the team rigorously with a play he calls the "Puke", as the players are to run it until they literally throw up. When Moon reveals that he had never puked, even as a baby, Monix strikes him in the jejunum, causing Moon to puke.
From Monix's training as well as the increased intensity of Clarence, the Tropics go on a winning run, moving from last to fifth. Jackie gets a visit from Ault, who revealed that regardless of their score of victories and rise in the ranks, the NBA does not think that Flint has a large enough media market and will not allow the Tropics into the league even if they beat the first place San Antonio Spurs in the last game of the season. After breaking the news to his team, Jackie admits that he stole "Love Me Sexy" from a napkin his mother wrote on three weeks before she died. Realizing that all his assets are basically stolen, Jackie trades Withers to the Spurs so that he can realize his dream of playing in the NBA. Monix reassembles and inspires the team to leave everything on the court, while they may not be able to continue the franchise after this season, they have come very far and still have a lot to prove.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Scot Armstrong
- Cinematography: Shane Hurlbut
- Edited by: Peter Teschner, Debra Neil-Fisher
- Music: Theodore Shapiro
- Production design: Clayton Hartley
- Produced by: Jimmy Miller
Cast
- Will Ferrell as Jackie Moon
- Woody Harrelson as Monix
- André 3000 as Clarence
- Maura Tierney as Lynn
- Andy Daly as Dick Pepperfield
- Will Arnett as Lou Redwood
- Andy Richter as Bobby Dee
- Rob Corddry as Kyle
- Matt Walsh as Father Pat the Ref
- Tim Meadows as Cornelius Banks
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: New Line Cinema, Mosaic Media Group, The Donners' Company, Road Rebel
- Budget: $55,000,000
- Box office: $33,500,000
- Themes: michigan, sports, 1970s, basketball, flint michigan, national basketball association (nba), merger, trade, garbage can, canon
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