InsidePulse Review – The Ringer

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Image courtesy of www.allposters.com

Director :

Barry Blaustein

Cast :

Johnny Knoxville……….Steve Barker
Brian Cox……….Gary
Leonard Flowers……….Jimmy
Katherine Heigl……….Lynn Sheridan
Leonard Earl Howze……….Mark
Geoffrey Arend…. Winston
John Taylor……….Rudy
Luis Avalos……….Stavi
Zen Gesner……….David
Bill Chott……….Thomas

There are certain groups in American you have to walk a fine line making fun of. While you can parody many types of people without regards to taste, groups like the handicapped enjoy a certain vantage point in comedy: if you make fun of something they’re involved in you walk a fine in just how you can make fun of it. So when the Special Olympics become a comedic vehicle for Johnny Knoxville, there’s a fine line to be walked in what you can and can’t do in terms of how you incorporate the less fortunate members of society into a film like The Ringer.

Borrowing a page from a South Park episode, The Ringer stars Knoxville as Steve Barker. Steve’s a good guy but trapped in a tight situation. Inspired by his motivation tapes to ask for a promotion at his job, Steve demands one from his boss. He receives it but his to fire Stavi (Luis Avalos) to get it. Feeling bad about it, Steve hires Stavi to be his gardener. When Stavi suffers an accident that requires a lot of surgical care, Steve has to come up with a large sum of money to pay for it. At the same time, his uncle Gary (Brian Cox) owes a large amount of money to some unsavory sorts. So Gary comes up with a plot to solve both their problems: rig the Special Olympics.

Specifically, they bet against Jimmy (Leonard Flowers), the six-time defending champion as Steve (a former high school track star) enrolls in the games as “Jeffy Dahmor,” a highly-functional disabled individual. While his attempt at impersonating a disabled individual fools the normal people, his ruse doesn’t fool the handicapped with whom he is competing with. They go along and help him in his scheme, if only to bring the egotistical Jimmy down a notch. What follows is a solidly entertaining underdog story, shockingly enough.

Knoxville is a sweet and touching character; he’s not doing it for the money or anything horrible, he’s doing something this horrible for a good reason. He’s a likable guy and Knoxville has a sort of charm as both “Jeffy” and as Steve. The event functions as a sort of wake up call for him; the next step in his life has not been there and his newfound friends help awaken this in him. His sidekick in scheming, Brian Cox, seems to be having a ball as Uncle Gary. Using every single politically incorrect term and phrase for Steve’s new friends, Cox seems to revel in the role with a fervor. Couple this with a number of solid performances from his handicapped cast-mates as well as from love interest Lynn (Katherine Heigl) and it’s a heart-warming story.

The problem is that a good portion of the film’s comedy comes from the slapstick styling of Knoxville. While it is quite funny in certain amounts, so much of the humor is vested in Knoxville getting hit with something or falling down that it becomes repetitive. There’s only so many times we can see of Knoxville falling down before it becomes boring; there’s plenty of great comedic moments in the film to be found with the slapstick, it’s just there’s plenty to be found outside of it that the film’s near relentless use of Knoxville being hit brings a great comedy down to being a good one.