Netflix Sports Comedy With SNL Legend Is An Over-The-Top Masterpiece

If I had to think of the best way to describe Kicking & Screaming, it would be an updated version of 1994’s Little Giants. Instead of Ed O’Neill yelling at Pee-Wee football players, we get Will Ferrell losing his mind on the soccer field. While the film’s beats are nothing new by any stretch of the imagination, we’re dealing with a similar story line that is always effective if done right.

While Little Giants saw Ed O’Neill and Rick Moranis, two brothers coaching competing teams, going head-to-head in an attempt to placate their own egos, Kicking & Screaming is a story about a father and son going through similar motions.

Kicking & Screaming centers on Will Ferrel’s Phil Weston, a vitamin shop owner whose son, Sam (Dylan McLaughlin), plays soccer on his father, Buck’s (Robert Duvall), soccer team, the Gladiators. Not having much of a backbone, Phil is troubled by the fact that Sam has been relegated to bench-warming status while Buck lets the other kids on his team dominate the field, but doesn’t know how to handle the situation. Phil knows how terrible it feels to not get any play-time because he had similar experiences when he was a kid; playing soccer on Buck’s team as a child was a humiliation he never got over.

Buck’s competitiveness in Kicking & Screaming results in him transferring Sam to the Tigers, the worst team in the league. Deciding to stand up to his old man, Phil resolves to coach the Tigers and lead them to victory. The problem, however, is that Phil is a terrible coach, and doesn’t know how to work with kids.

As Kicking & Screaming escalates into its second and third acts, Phil becomes increasingly unhinged and obsessed with getting the Tigers all the way to the finals so they can beat the Gladiators at their own game. Recruiting help from his neighbor, Mike Ditka (playing himself), Phil puts his team through a training regimen that would break most adults if they were subjected to it.

Losing sight of why he decided to coach his son’s team in the first place, Phil becomes addicted to coffee and has a total manic meltdown, but not before making a wager with his father that would put his livelihood and reputation on the line. As Phil’s newfound competitive drive turns him into a carbon-copy of his father, he realizes that he needs to reel things in if he wants to set a good example for his son.

But it’s also worth nothing that by this time in the film, Phil is already dressing himself in a blue and black striped track suit, giving new meaning to the term “tiger parent.”

Kicking & Screaming is a by-the-numbers Will Ferrell sports comedy, but its pacing will help you forgive its generic premise. We’ve all seen versions of this movie before, so on it’s own it’s not very special at face-value. Will Ferrell, who had to be wholly aware of this, delivers such an obnoxious and over-the-top performance that he gives this film the ‘X’ factor it needs to be one of those family films you’ll want to queue up on a rainy day with the kids because he understood the assignment.

What’s more, if you’ve ever participated in youth sports, you’ll laugh your face off because as insane as Will Ferrell is acting, he’s not too far off the mark as an overzealous, trash-talking sports dad. As much as Phil will make you cringe in this movie, he’s still not as bad as some real-life little-league coaches because his intentions are pure despite the fact that his ego gets the best of him.

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While it may not be Will Ferrell’s most memorable film coming from the weird “washed up sports guy going for one last victory” era of his career, Kicking and Screaming is just as quotable as Anchorman or Step Brothers, but without all of the profanity. The amount of times I think of this movie because I’ve worked the phrase “4-foot whirling dervishes” into my lexicon whenever I need to describe the chaotic nature of my own children is palpable, and there’s plenty more where that came from if you give this movie 95 minutes of your time.

At the time of this writing, you can stream Kicking & Screaming on Netflix, and you’ll have a great time watching Will Ferrell scream at children, if that’s what you’re into.