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Ghost Canyon

'Beer League: Special Edition' [Blu-ray]
(Artie Lange, Ralph Macchio, Anthony De Sando, Cara Buono, Tina Fey, et al / Blu-ray / R / (2006) 2019 / MVD Visual)

Overview: An unemployed slacker inspires his softball teammates to improve their game so they won't get kicked out of the local league.

'Beer League: Special Edition' [Blu-ray] is out May 14th, 2019 via MVD Visual.

Blu-ray Verdict: Artie Lange is an acquired taste. That is, if you know who he is! Not a marquee name, though definitely a recognizable face, Lange, like Adam Sandler, is the kind of comedian you either love or hate: loud, profane, and politically incorrect.

Lange is basically John Belushi reincarnated (it helps that Lange looks enough like Belushi that he could play him in a bio pic). I've been a huge fan of Artie Lange's since the beginning of his career so the critique that follows should be considered pretty biased.

In 'Beer League', Lange plays Artie (what a surprise), a 35-year-old alcohol-loving slacker/loser without a job who still lives with his mother (Laurie Metcalf).

His life consists of little else besides attending bars, eating, and playing softball with his buddies. After getting in a fight with the championship team, it is decided by the local police that only one of the teams will be able to remain in the league at the end of the season.

What follows is a series of scenes involving non-stop cursing, alcohol consumption, and some softball playing in between.

It goes without saying that 'Beer League' doesn't have the strongest plot in the world, which helps get as much nudity, crude jokes, and general tastelessness as one could want from the genre.

A good 85% of the jokes succeed. However, there are times when the lack of story really does hurt the film. While never coming across as a one-joke, "Saturday Night Live" (or in Lange's case, "MAD TV") sketch kind of movie, Lange and co-writer/director Frank Sebastiano occasionally seem to find themselves in a trap as to what exactly to do with the picture to move it along plot wise.

There's a sub-plot involving Artie's love-interest Linda (the very cute Cara Buono, giving the best performance of anyone in the cast) that gives the raunch-fest an unexpected heart, though despite their chemistry, her character and their relationship is never developed strongly enough for me to give it a higher rating.

That said, the romance angle works a lot better here than it did in recent R-rated comedies like WEDDING CRASHERS and 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, where it seemed to take the focus away from the main proceedings and in VIRGIN's case, felt extraordinarily fake.

In closing, and to sum things up here after my journalistic ramble, 'Beer League' is better than both the aforementioned comedies and certainly has more laughs than both combined, but if you aren't a fan of Lange chances are you'll find yourself disagreeing. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

Beer Googles Short
Beer League: Behind The Scenes Featurette
Live from CineVegas Featurette
Artie Lange Behind The Scenes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Best Damn Sports Show
In the Studio with Artie Lang: Jokes and Ringtones
Raw Interviews
Photo Gallery
Original Theatrical Trailer

www.MVDvisual.com





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