Champions (2023) review

Surly minor league basketball coach Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) gets fired for shoving his boss (and pal) Phil (Ernie Hudson) during a game, he drinks too much and slams into a cop car and then is ordered by the court to work with an intellectually challenged team called "The Friends" and bring out the best in them.  It's based on a Spanish movie from 2018 (which I haven't seen) and you can anticipate every move in advance: he's dismissive of the youngsters at first, can't get their most skilled player Darius (Joshua Felder) to compete with them, has a rough "relationship" with Alex (Kaitlin Olson) whose brother is on the team ... and then he rediscovers his humanity, the squad is successful, he's rehired, etc.  Harrelson's a champ through all this - even though, as the young lady says, he's no McConaughey - and it glides on a very thin line between supporting individuals born with disadvantages and exploiting them for easy sympathy points: don't forget, director Farrelly did co-write Dumb and Dumber.