In the new Happy Madison film “Home Team,” Sandlerverse regular and former mall enforcement officer Kevin James plays Sean Payton, the real-life coach of the New Orleans Saints for over twenty years. Specifically, James portrays the coach during the 2012 NFL season when he was suspended after his staff was accused of paying out bonuses (bounties) to players who could injure the players for opposing teams. Instead of digging into on the most interesting sports scandals of the 2010s, the movie only showcases the portion of that suspension that Payton spent coaching his son’s little league football team.
The film is a perfect achievement in mediocrity, with a few laughs, a few jokes that induce groaning, and almost nothing plot-wise we haven’t seen done better in other “little league team overcomes the odds” movies. (I can’t move on without noting that the two most climactic parts of this movie are done in a similar but better fashion in both “The Bad News Bears” and “The Little Giants”)
The biggest issue I have with the film is its complete ignorance of the real-life scandal Payton was at the center of, as the only mention is when Payton’s son asks “did you do it,” and gets the response “it’s complicated.” Apparently “complicated” but not interesting enough to ever be mentioned by the movie again. When you remove the reality aspect completely the movie’s biggest flaw becomes its mixed messaging and lack of character growth. Characters all end the movie much happier and more united than they started, but why? They win more games, but the message of the finale is that winning doesn’t matter. Payton goes back to the Saints, abandoning his son again and the members of the team remain good friends, which they are when the movie starts.
After giving this film more thought than I believe any other culture writer will in my lifetime, I have cracked how to fix both of these integral issues in the film. Instead of winning their little league games due to Payton’s ultra-instinct play-calling and the sixth graders’ unrealistic ability to understand and run the plays, they should have turned their season around via a little league football bounty system.
They should have turned their season around via a little league football bounty system.
James (as Payton) should have begun offering kids ice cream, arcade tokens, and V Bucks other things kids liked in 2012 if they could injure the middle-schoolers they were playing against. Imagine the dramatic tension if instead of Payton choosing to bench his son’s friend, he asked his son to subtly tear the ACL of a kid who happens to be slightly more athletic than 6 other kids playing in a Christian little league in Argyle, TX.
The pure Happy Madison-esque hijinks that would ensure this team of rapscallions maim and end the careers of every decent little boy that catches a pass would be hysterical! The kid in the movie that’s scared of contact refuses to hit someone until Coach Payton offers him a new Lego set based on Underworld: Awakening (the biggest movie hit of 2012). The team wins multiple games due to ref stoppages even though they aren’t getting any better at football or playing as a family. Payton’s son has to learn where a femur is. I could go on and on!
Then, of course, after one of their players is injured in the big championship game, Payton and the team learn their lesson, finally realizing what we all eventually come to learn. That trying to end the lives of others who are playing a game, whether they are adults and this is literally their job, or they are children and have no idea why every adult takes their games so seriously, is wrong. Tus giving him an arc in the movie that isn’t “I lost my job, did nothing, and got it back.”
Happy Madison, do better. Don’t use your seemingly unstoppable Netflix powerhouse of a studio to feed us a millionaire’s propaganda story. Use it to inflict brutal violence on children.
Wait, no, I meant like in the movie. Outside of the movie, I wouldn’t want them to actually-
You know what, Steve, just cut that last line completely. Replace it with something like “use your power to make “Grown Ups 3” or something I don’t care. Just take out that other thing.