Kicking & Screaming (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Deleted Scenes-The Red Cards Outtakes-The Yellow Cards Additional Footage-Alternate Takes Featurette-From Rome To Hollywood Featurette-Kickin' It With The Kids Featurette-Soccer Camp Featurette-Making Of-Behind The Net
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	90:53
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:45)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Jesse Dylan
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Will Ferrell Robert Duvall Mike Ditka Kate Walsh Musetta Vander Dylan McLaughlin Josh Hutcherson Steven Anthony Lawrence Jeremy Bergman Elliott Cho Erik Walker Dallas McKinney Francesco Liotti
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Mark Isham Pinar Toprak

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Hungarian Dutch Danish Finnish Hebrew Icelandic Norwegian Swedish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    As some of you may know from reading other reviews of mine such as Bewitched, I enjoy the work of Will Ferrell and find him amusing. Accordingly, I decided to take a look at this new film of his, recently released to DVD. Well, to put it simply, even liking Will Ferrell will not help you enjoy this resoundingly ordinary film.

    The plot is a very simple (and clichéd) one about a man, Phil Weston (Will Ferrell), a decent, hard working man who has always been derided by his ultra-competitive father, Buck (Robert Duvall) for not being good enough at sports. His father has consistently made fun of him and tried to top everything he does, even having another son himself when Phil's son was born and pointing out that his new son, Bucky, was slightly heavier than Phil's son, Sam. Anyway, as the boys grow up together, they both play for the same soccer team, the Gladiators, coached by Buck. Buck decides to trade Sam to another team in the league, The Tigers because he is not good enough to get playing time with the Gladiators. When The Tigers coach doesn't show up to coach the first game, Phil is forced to take over as coach and compete against his father. He enlists the help of Mike Ditka, a famous American football coach who also happens to be his father's next door neighbour. Ditka agrees to help so he can annoy Buck, which he spends a lot of his time doing. Slowly, Phil's competitiveness and stress levels grow and he becomes addicted to coffee, turning him into a complete maniac alienating the kids. The plot leads to the inevitable conclusion, which I am sure you can guess.

    I was very confused about what audience this film was aiming at because on one hand it is attempting to satirise American competitiveness and focuses on the adult relationship between Phil and Buck but on the other hands features lots of cute kids playing lots of soccer. Personally, I didn't think it was suitable for young children, and to a large degree it wasn't funny. There were a few scenes involving Phil and the coffee shop where he gets his fix which made me laugh but that was about it on the humour front. Additionally, there would seem to have been a rushed editing job or last minute plot changes because some references are included in the film which only make sense when you watch the deleted scenes.

    Even a Will Ferrell fan such as myself can't recommend this one.

Video

    The video quality is very good, and bordering on excellent.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was very clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was excellent.

    The colour was rich and solid throughout.

    The only noticeable artefact was aliasing which was mild and occurred at 3:02 on a grille and 13:33 on a net.

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired and 9 other languages. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read.

    The layer change occurs at 58:45 causing a significant pause.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains two audio options, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384 Kb/s and the same in Hungarian.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by Mark Isham is pretty good but quite clichéd like the rest of this film.

    The surround speakers added some mild directional effects and atmosphere. As this is a comedy you cannot expect the full-blown surround experience.

    The subwoofer added bass as required, mostly to the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    A rather lame set of extras is included, which stand out for quantity rather than quality. All are presented non 16x9 enhanced.

Menu

    The menu included music and the ability to select scenes, languages and subtitles.

The Red Cards - Deleted Scenes (11:58)

    As mentioned above some of these scenes make references in the film make sense and others are obviously strange abandoned ideas such as the battle style scene. They all run together. Not the worst extra here.

The Yellow Cards : Outtakes (8:40)

    This fairly long gag reel includes some mildly amusing stuff, mostly of Ditka stuffing up and a lot of scenes interrupted by other noises.

Alternate Takes (5:35)

    These are basically different versions of Will Ferrell improvising such as when arguing with Mike Ditka. The ones included in the film are better.

From Rome to Hollywood (8:55)

    A featurette about the two Italian ring-ins pulled into The Tigers by Mike Ditka. The real kids are actually from Italy and were young soccer prodigies. OK.

Kickin' It With The Kids (3:14)

    Featurette of interviews with the child actors about working on the film and their impressions of Duvall, Ditka and Ferrell.

Soccer Camp (7:37)

    A featurette about how they made the soccer realistic including an interview with the soccer choreographer, Daniel Metcalfe. Covers the 2 week camp the kids went through and their introduction to Robert Duvall and how he picked up something about being a soccer coach.

Behind The Net : Making of (13:01)

    Pretty standard promotional making-of which features interview segments with the main cast and crew and covers the story, casting Mike Ditka and working with Robert Duvall and Will Ferrell.

    The Region 1 version of this release features different language options but is otherwise the same. Let's call it a draw.

    The video quality is very good, bordering on excellent.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The disc has quite a few extras, none of which are particularly exciting.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall