It’s the 70s all over again. Michigan’s favorite minor league basketball star, Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell), also happens to be the coach and owner of his own team. Based out of Michael Moore’s old stomping ground, the Flint Tropics aren’t a very good team in terms of the sport of basketball, but they certainly are an entertaining bunch. Moon himself even has a somewhat popular disco song making its way around the club circuit. Only the public are starting not to care about him anymore.

Tropics games are all but empty with attendance and Moon just found out that the league his team is apart of is about to go under. Their only hope is to be one of the four teams that move on to the NBA instead of one that disbands. But again, Jackie isn’t a very good motivator when it comes to the sport. He cares more about the theatrics of it all instead of the fundamentals. The rest of his teammates, including Coffee Black (Andre Benjamin) and old NBA pro Monix (Woody Harrelson), decide to take that matter into their own hands. Monix labels himself the team’s new coach in offensive and defensive tactics, while Jackie still remains coach by name.

Semi-Pro is a bad film, even by traditional Will Ferrell standards. The jokes constantly misfire, last too long, or try too hard to disgust. It’s about 90 minutes long but about 85 minutes too long. A skit on Saturday Night Live may have done this material some justice; it just wasn’t good enough to stretch into a film.

Will Arnett, Andy Richter, David Koechner, Rob Corddry and Jackie Earle Haley (who provides the only laughs throughout the whole film) co-star. With a cast like this, how did it go so terribly wrong? Semi-Pro was written by Scot Armstrong (Old School) and directed by studio executive Kent Alterman. Based on some of the projects he has been responsible for helping to get off the ground (A History of Violence and Little Children), you’d think he know how to handle characterization or delivery a touch better.

There is one sequence in this film that could be used as a metaphor for its experience. A few of the characters are sitting around playing poker when a heated debate causes one of them to pull out a gun. You quickly learn that the gun isn’t supposed to be loaded. The characters find the joke pretty amusing and decide to keep it going, by pointing the gun to their heads and pulling the trigger.

This happens about 4 or 5 times, and no one is harmed, but you find yourself hoping for the best. You want one of these characters to die just so the film has some element of surprise. You actually find yourself thinking that you wish you had a loaded pistol to put yourself out of this misery. Only the gun doesn’t have any bullets. Just like this film doesn’t have any moments of hilarity except for maybe their uniform choices. But that is no reason to suffer through a film (or even make one in the first place).