If best-in-show comic filmmaker Christopher Guest were undergoing a spinal tap while waiting for Guffman and hiding from a mighty wind, he might want to pass the time with a mockumentary.
"Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story" would be an excellent choice. Guest would be flattered by director Brant Sersen's tribute to Guest-style satire. Sersen sneaks up behind the semi-obscure sport of paintball and hoists it up for an atomic wedgie.
Sersen's motley band of social misfits are every bit as lovably dippy as Guest's dog-show enthusiasts in "Best in Show" or over-the-hill folk singers in "A Mighty Wind." The overall story may be nothing special — it's just your average everyday underdog sports tale — but "Blackballed" finds its pleasures in minute explosions of absurdity.
Start with the opening montage, in which an unseen narrator tells the Bobby Dukes backstory using He-Man action figures. The scene is an inspired burst of intentional incompetence, and only a taste of the nuttiness to come.
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Rob Corddry, a ubiquitous character actor and correspondent for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," checks in with a rare lead role as the disgraced title character. Humiliated and chased from the sport a decade ago after he was caught wiping off paint to hide a hit, Bobby has toiled in obscurity while his legend is continually soiled. He's labeled a "wiper," in much the same way a steroid-taking athlete would be stuck with a "doper" reputation.
Bobby wants his old stature back and seeks to win it back by scrapping together a team to win the classic. He meets widespread resistance from old friends who regard him as a pariah. One pal says he'd take a bullet for Bobby, only not a bullet made of paint.
At least Bobby can count on his sister, Erika (Dannah Feinglass), a hopeless spaz who hardly knows how to hold a paintball gun. At least Erika has a positive attitude and pipes in with reliable non sequiturs meant as encouragement. Other team members include a clueless, gung-ho xenophobe, a widely disrespected paintball referee and a Canadian defector.
Standing in the way of Bobby's glory is Sam (Rob Huebel), a cocky and idiotic rival who attempts to intimidate opponents on the field by screaming "I'm invisible," thus unwittingly giving away his location. He seems modeled after Ben Stiller's pompous White Goodman character in "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story." On Sam's arm is self-described "eye candy" Jill (Jamie Denbo), a paintball groupie who once dated Bobby.
"Blackballed" maintains the humor level with a steady splattering of jokes as colorful as the painted splotches that eliminate paintball competitors as dead.
The film suffers only toward the end, as some of Guest's do, when it comes time to drop the ridicule and fulfill the protagonists' dreams and tie up loose ends from the nonsensical story.
Sweet and funny don't often mix, and "Blackballed" tries too hard to turn audience members into "wipers," as in tear wipers. Sersen should have kept on shooting.
review
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
HHH
Rated: Not rated
Cast: Rob Corddry, Paul Scheer, Dannah Feinglass, Rob Riggle
Director: Brant Sersen
Family call: It would probably draw a PG-13 rating. It's fine for older kids.
Running time: 91 minutes
Opens Friday at: The Loft
