Cast: Will Ferrell, Robert Duvall. Dir: Jesse Dylan. It’s mum and dad who’ll be kicking and screaming if they’re dragged along to this lacklustre kids’ comedy about a sports flop who’s out to settle a score with his pushy dad. Not even the talents of Will Ferrell can lift this sports comedy out of the relegation zone. The Anchorman star plays nerdy nice guy Phil (Will Ferrell) who wasn’t much of an athlete - much to the disappointment of his ferociously competitive father, Buck Weston (Robert Duvall). Now that he’s a dad himself, Phil is determined not to pressure 10-year-old son Sam in the same way. But after Grandpa Buck drops Sam from the football team he coaches, Phil decides to take over Sam’s new team. He’s determined to beat his father - no matter what it takes. And along the way, he morphs from a loving dad into the coach from hell. Will having Chicago Bears legend Mike Ditka as his assistant be enough to turn his no-hopers into champions? How much you will like this film depends on two things - can you stomach Will Ferrell, and how do you feel about Americans and soccer? The idea is catchy enough - obsessive sports parent parody meets father-son redemption riff. Ferrell busts a gut to be funny, but the movie is weakly-scripted.It’s a key flaw as a Will Ferrell comedy at least, is that it’s more about situation than character, and an uninspiring situation at that. Ferrell rarely bettered when it comes to wringing guffaws out of an absurd creation like idiot newsreader Ron Burgundy. And you can’t help but wish the competitive dad role had gone to someone more comedically astute, someone like Rip Torn. Yet all of the above are let down by director Jesse Dylan, he reduces the film to a little more than a technical mess. This year’s Dodgeball? Not a chance. Ferrel admirably tackles the so-so material, but it soon defeats him.