Fired Up

Director: Will Gluck
Screenwriters: Freedom Jones
Starring: Nicholas D'Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, Philip Baker Hall
Running time: 90 mins
Certificate: 12A

The advent of IMAX and 3D movies is bringing a greater interactive element to cinemas around the country. In keeping with this new trend, any cinemas screening supposed comedy Fired Up should be equipped with tumbleweed. Lots of it. Constantly blowing across the aisles. It's that bad.

Following dumb college jocks Shawn (Nicholas D'Agosto) and Nick (Eric Christian Olsen) as they infiltrate a cheerleader camp, the movie painfully limps along with just one solitary moment of humour. That arrives when Shawn's evil arch nemesis Rick (David Walton) displays his loser credentials by rocking out to tunes by Lou Bega and Chumbawumba. It's somewhat amusing to observe two dire musical acts being mocked by a movie so terrible itself. In fact, listening to 'Mambo Number Five' on repeat for 90 minutes would be heaven compared to watching Fired Up.

The "Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita" to whom Bega refers in his lyrics, on a sliding scale of sweetness, all have greater character definition than anyone present in this tedious mess. D'Agosto and Olsen look embarrassed in the title roles, with the latter trying to pull off some Will Ferrell style mania by shouting and gesticulating a lot. The sad, hollow eyes give him away though, denoting the look of a man watching his career slide down the pan.

It's sad to see veteran actor Philip Baker Hall in a supporting role as an irate high school football coach. So great in Boogie Nights and Magnolia, he's now playing a character whose sole purpose is to spit out the word 's**t' a lot so that the students can bet on how many times he will say it. At times, it's tempting to adopt a similar verbal approach when discussing this film.

Still, Baker Hall has escaped lightly compared to the disgusting stereotyping that pervades a young gay male student. Played by the nauseating Adhir Kalyan, the figure of Brewster minces around with wrists so limp they're practically hanging off, regularly exposes his genitalia to those around him, quotes lines from Bring It On, and has a lisp. We're supposed to be in the 21st Century, right? Jesus Christ.

Fired Up is a desperate and vacuous attempt at a teen comedy that not only lacks laughs, but even the gross-out moments and shameless nudity used by other such genre offerings. At least those type of flicks serve some purpose, such as masturbatory material for adolescents or titillation through shock value. This sub-Bega drivel has nothing.


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