Church Ball
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Dennis Buckstead and his team of misfits.
It’s the last season of church ball and Dennis Buckstead (ANDREW WILSON) has been asked by Bishop Linderman (FRED WILLARD) to lead a group of uncoordinated misfits to the Church Basketball Championships. For the last twenty years the competitive Bishop Linderman, who was suspended from coaching twenty years ago for violent behavior, has watched the Mud Lake team fail to make the Church Basketball Tournament. And now word from the “top” is that church ball will be cancelled, making this season Bishop Linderman’s last chance to see Mud Lake redeem itself.
According to church headquarters, church ball has run off course; what was supposed to strengthen the body, invigorate the mind and cultivate brotherly love brings out the worst in these church-going ball players. But despite its bad reputation, Dennis is determined to magnify his calling and build a championship-winning team. To work with, he’s got the nerdy church clerk Gene (CLINT HOWARD), small-in-stature Charles Higgins (GARY COLEMAN), rebellious bad-mouth Mickey (ROSS BROCKLEY), donut eating Don Weaver (CHAD LONG), weak-hearted church janitor, Thurman (STEVE ANDERSON), and European football-loving foreigner Nader (SINA AMEDSON). This is hardly a championship-bound group.
Bruce (Curt Doussett) challenges the weak-hearted Thurman (Steve Anderson).
But in all hopeless situations there is a silver lining. And that silver lining is Moses Mahoney (THURL BAILEY), a seven-foot giant who teaches basketball to troubled kids downtown. Unfortunately for Dennis, this silver lining has a conscience; Moses declines any interest in playing ball with Mud Lake because he doesn’t feel Dennis’ intentions are right. So then Dennis focuses on “friend-shipping” the tall and burly Jeremiah Jones (STAN ELLSWORTH), a possible savior for the Mud Lake team who won’t play because of bad past experiences with church ball.
Dennis just wants a winning team – is that too much to ask! Not even the Bishop’s supposedly “divinely-inspired” book of basketball plays seem to be working. His moves, with names like “Red-headed step child” and “Gob Stopper,” seem to promote only more violence. And though most of Dennis’s players are more interested in starting brawls than playing ball, Dennis manages to start building team unity through community service and practice.
In what is nothing short of divine intervention, Dennis turns a team of oddballs into a team of players. And along the way he mends relationships, creates friends and makes it to the Church Basketball Tournament. The only thing that stands in their way is the Crystal Hills team , featuring The Bracken brothers (CURT DOUSETT and LARRY BAGBY), the always conceited, always victorious lawyers. The last game of church ball is set to be the most important and potentially biggest brawl in church basketball history – winner takes all. And in Church Ball, it isn’t how you play the game . . . it’s whether you win or lose.
Director Kurt Hale and Director of Photography William Webb on the set.
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