Semi Pro (Single Disc) (2008)

Rolling Stone
"Ferrell is a slam-dunk....SEMI-PRO has an R rating that liberates Ferrell from being family-friendly, as in a foulmouthed poker game that end in a Russian-roulette stunt out of THE DEER HUNTER." 03/20/2008 p.68

Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "SEMI-PRO tosses improvised skits around like comedy candy....The highpoint sees Ferrell wrestling a bear that escapes into a packed audience of sports fans..." 05/01/2008 p.50

ReelViews 6 of 10
This movie struggles for laughs, in part because the writing is lazy with too much of the humor being obvious and easily telegraphed, and in part because Semi-Pro is obsessed with being a sports film rather than merely parodying one. Admittedly, both approaches have been done so often that it's difficult to find a fresh angle, but there would seem to be more unplowed territor in the latter category than the former. Nevertheless, that's not where first-time director Kent Alterman and screenwriter Scot Armstrong take this movie. Instead of a satire, they give us a tired, tedious victory-for-the-underdog story, and the unevenness of Ferrell's comedy makes it less appealing...Semi-Pro does a solid job of recreating a pop culture vision of the 1970s. This may not have been how it actually was, but it's how movies and television remember it - brash, outrageous, and over-the-top...As a comedian, Will Ferrell is at his best when he's working with a funny screenplay. His seat-of-the-pants improvisation often comes across more as weird than hilarious...Although director Ken Alterman achieves a degree of moderation in this regard, the script is weak and it hampers Ferrell's ability to play someone who's more than the loud drunk at the bar. Jackie Moon crosses the line from funny to annoying and he's never sympathetic - merely pathetic. - James Berardinelli
 
The Village Voice 7 of 10
Semi-Pro's much better than Blades of Glory, which wasn't nearly as good as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which was a little better than Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which was almost as funny as Old School, which was better than everything else Will Ferrell had done up to that point--except maybe Dick, which nobody saw and even fewer remember. Seems this is what it's come down to with Ferrell: grading his movies in various shades of enh as each one blends into the next till they're all one giant gray blob of feh. Which sells short the semi-funny Semi-Pro--essentially Major League clad in 1970s short-shorts, topped with a few 'fros for fun...What at least distinguishes Semi-Pro from its predecessors (not only those starring Ferrell, but also such lesser lights as Dodgeball and Balls of Fury) is that it's a slightly darker movie--one made for grown-ups, hence the R rating. In one rather surprisingly tense scene set around a poker table, which begins with someone being called a "jive turkey" as opposed to the apparently more acceptable "cocksucker," a painfully prolonged Deer Hunter re-enactment breaks out. The audience half-expects someone to blow his head clean off--Jackie Moon, preferably. - Robert Wilonsky