The year is 1976, and Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, the owner and star player of the Flint Michigan Tropics semi-professional basketball team. He made his money by performing a one-hit-wonder disco tune called "Love Me Sexy" and pours his heart and soul into the team. Unfortunately, while he is enthusiastic over the game, the fans aren't. In fact, they aren't even bringing in enough money to pay the announcers and crew. But Jackie's prayers seem to be answered when the American Basketball Association announces that they will be merging with the NBA and four teams will be allowed to be adopted into the professionals.
After a bit of begging and pleading, Moon convinces the association's commissioner to make the choice of which teams will continue based on skill and the rankings at the end of the season. So now, the Tropics have to win every single game they play in order to get fourth in the league and save the team. In order to help the team succeed, Moon hires a ringer named Monix (Woody Harrelson), who holds a championship ring, but as one of the players, Clarence "Coffee" Black (Andre Benjamin) is quick to point out, he spent the entire season on the bench and didn't do anything to help his team win the game.
Meanwhile, it seems like Monix has a bit of history with a local gal who dated him a while back. So not only does Monix have to deal with training a team that's never really played basketball before (at least not like a team should), but he also has to do it without hurting Moon's feelings and he has to try and win back the heart of a girl, a girl who is dating Monix's biggest fan, oddly enough.
In order to keep Moon busy while Monix trains the crew, everyone decides that he should handle the promotions since they are expected to bring in at least 2000 fans for every home game if they are to be considered for the NBA. So Moon will do everything from wrestle a bear to skate off of a ramp and over a dozen cheerleaders in order to bring in the bodies.
Harrelson's character seems to be the only real serious one in the movie (the other possible exception seems to be Monix's love interest), while the other players all end up in some situation at some point where they are just goofy. A perfect example is when a group of them are sitting around a poker table and someone gets offended when they are called a jive turkey. A gun is pulled, but when they find out it's not loaded, it gets passed around with each one taking a turn pulling the trigger, until it (in a very predictable manner) goes off when one of them tosses it down.
Semi-Pro does have one thing going for it though, and that is special features. In fact, there are two Blu-ray discs in this package. One disc contains both the theatrical and unrated versions of the movie, while the other has features like the "Love Me Sexy" music video, or a series of improv sessions that didn't quite make it into the movie. While it has a good bit of content, in general, most of it is only interesting to the most dedicated viewer and can probably be skipped, but at least the deleted and alternate scenes are enjoyable.
In the end, Semi-Pro just feels too formulaic and, while it has a few good laughs, is generally not worth the price of admission.
