{"id":12485,"date":"2006-12-30T02:05:37","date_gmt":"2006-12-30T07:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=12485"},"modified":"2006-12-30T02:05:37","modified_gmt":"2006-12-30T07:05:37","slug":"the-ringer-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/30\/the-ringer-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ringer (2005)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the-ringer-2005--00\"<\/a>I liked \u201cThe Ringer.\u201d I liked it a lot. Because, in spite of the jack ass from \u201cJackass\u201d starring, and the potential for a complete cheapening of the Special Olympics, every opportunity this film had to spit in our faces, it didn\u2019t. The controversy behind this was pointless. Because, in spite of the previews, \u201cThe Ringer\u201d really isn\u2019t a cheap comedy. The mentally disabled pictured here are not comedy props for fart jokes, and they\u2019re not caricatures, or objects to laugh at. I just didn\u2019t understand the controversy behind \u201cThe Ringer.\u201d Maybe it was bad press for the sake of hype, or perhaps just more morons making a fuss over a film they haven\u2019t seen just yet, but when I was finished, I didn\u2019t see the big deal. It\u2019s not just some shitty comedy from Tom Green, and it didn\u2019t warrant any sort of hype in the end.<\/p>\n

And Blitt, even in surprising with a film that\u2019s not what the audience will expect, provides us with the same amount of predictability you expect from every modern comedy. Director Blaustein and writer Blitt paint these mentally disabled individuals as actual people with personalities that do not revolve around their disabilities. Some are computer wiz\u2019s, some are experts in movie trivia, and many are loyal to one another. In spite of my pre-conceived notions with it, \u201cThe Ringer\u201d sheds a positive light on the folks in the Special Olympics, and that\u2019s what makes it worth watching. That and the fact that it\u2019s an often surprisingly entertaining bit of comedy that\u2019s never as low brow as you\u2019d expect.<\/p>\n

Steve, in an attempt to help out a janitor whose fingers were just cut off, decides to pretend to be mentally disabled, join the special Olympics, and use the prize money to re-attach the fingers, but in mission, he finds a lot more. What\u2019s most interesting and appealing about \u201cThe Ringer\u201d is the interplay between Knoxville\u2019s character and the people within the Special Olympics he finds a connection with. Blaustein plays their relationship with comedy that makes them nothing more than buddies protecting one another. Once Steve, masquerading as mentally disabled Jeffy Dahmer, with the help of his con man uncle (Brian Cox), his pre-conceived notions turns into what he realizes are stereotypes. Knoxville\u2019s performance is shockingly good as this loser with the best of intentions from beginning to end, and he\u2019s never as slimy as the audience thinks he is.<\/p>\n

Steve\u2019s entrance into the competition and his friendship with the contestants ends up very engaging, especially with Katherine Heigl in a memorable supporting performance. What could have been another throwaway love interest really expands into a likable character whose story of her involvement with the mentally disabled is very wrenching. \u201cThe Ringer\u201d hits all the right notes in comedy, light down to Earth drama, and a resulting tasteful comedy that\u2019s worth watching. Even if you\u2019re not a fan of Knoxville. I enjoyed \u201cThe Ringer.\u201d Now I can officially throw myself down the stairs. No one is as shocked I enjoyed it as much as I am, but \u201cThe Ringer\u201d is not some shitty cheap comedy, it\u2019s a hilarious tasteful dramedy about a man learning that the mentally disabled are in fact human, and in the process, the audiences learns too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I liked \u201cThe Ringer.\u201d I liked it a lot. Because, in spite of the jack ass from \u201cJackass\u201d starring, and the potential for a complete cheapening of the Special Olympics, every opportunity this film had to spit in our faces, it didn\u2019t. The controversy behind this was pointless. Because, in spite of the previews, \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[219,813,874,974],"class_list":["post-12485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-comedy","tag-r","tag-romance","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}