Movie Review: Fired Up!

Chris Gladden - Roanoke Times & World News

They just don't make bad movies like they used to. The fun ones, the ones so cheesy the producing studio could have been named Kraft, reveled in their trashy nature. When they took themselves seriously, they became even more ridiculously enjoyable. Think "Motel Hell" or "Basic Instinct 2."

But not anymore -- even the clunkers these days have the occasional redeeming feature. Such is the case with "Fired Up," a dumb movie with occasional bursts of intelligence. It could well have been titled "Wedding Crashers: The Early Years."

Shawn and Nick are two high-school football players with more hormones than their over-worked systems can handle. They've hooked up with just about every girl at Gerald R. Ford High School, and their horizon is shrinking. To their horror, they're about to endure two weeks of Junction Boys football camp out in a burning desert with no female companionship.

When they learn about a simultaneous cheerleader camp, they decide to trade in their shoulder pads for pom-poms.

Carly, the head cheerleader, smells a rat, and rightly so. The boys intend to sate themselves and then desert their team for a buddy's extended party in a house with no parents. This brings into question their good sense.

As one of the girls puts it, they are two of four straight guys in the midst of 300 girls. Indeed, they are foxes in a hen house where the hens are all tanned and toned foxes in their own right. And Shawn and Nick want to go hang out with a bunch of slobs whose idea of fun is squirting whipped cream on their passed-out comrades.

Of course, there's a formula at work here. As the Stones so aptly put it: You can't always get what you want -- at least until the final reel.

Shawn wants Carly, who has an obnoxious, preening boyfriend who is only using her to please his family. Nick wants the head counselor, a desperate housewife married to the camp's director. She's played by supermodel Molly Sims, so give Nick credit for taste if not brains.

Then there are the obligatory villains: a rival cheerleader squad of contemptible snobs, necessary for the final tumble down.

First-time director Will Gluck falls victim to the bang-you-on- the-head approach. But his screenwriter throws out some occasional witty lines and makes some timely cultural references (Nickelback and Nathan Lane). The language is generally raunchy, and there are several gay jokes, but they're more sympathetic than homophobic.

Some of the performances are over-the-top. But Nicholas D'Agosto as Shawn, Eric Christian Olsen as Nick and Sarah Roemer as Carly turn in competent comic jobs, given the material.

No one over 13 will think this will become an art-house classic. But it's a passably mindless time killer. Too bad it couldn't have been worse.

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