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Fired Up!

5/10

Stars: Nicholas D'Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, Sarah Roemer, Molly Sims,Danneel Harris CQ, David Walton, Adhir Kalyan, Annalynne McCord, Juliette Goglia, Philip Baker Hall, John Michael Higgins

Director: Will Gluck

“Screw football, let’s go to cheer!”

Teenage American High School jocks D'Agosto and Olsen take their own advice, decide to avoid the rigours of a vacation at football camp and instead opt to join the ranks of lithe and lovely lovelies at Cheerleader Camp, leading to the expected outbreak of sexual conquests, budding romances and mostly simple-minded multiplex-aimed comedy. (Appropriately, perhaps, given their Alma mater is the Gerald Ford High School, Olsen avers during a courtship that “Any idiot can be President”, a line guaranteed, I suspect, to enrage the recently deposed Republicans).

The ambitious dialogue sparkles (relatively for the genre) since the movie aspires to nothing more than easy-on-the mind entertainment, and I enjoyed the new definition of romantic entanglements when someone is described as a being a “pre-fiancée”. The vigorous cheerleading displays have an enjoyably athletic Busby Berkeley quality, the leads, predominantly given to sexual conquest as soon as they reach Cheerleading Camp, do all that is required of them with commendable enthusiasm while director Will Gluck decorates the proceedings with a professional sheen without even the slightest aspiration to auteurism. No masterpiece, to be sure, but an amiable-enough comedy that meets its non-demanding demographic satisfactorily while leaving few traces in your memory.

The one surprise is the appearance of indie favourite Baker Hall as the constantly apoplectic coach.

Alan Frank

USA 2009. UK Distributor: Sony. Colour.
89 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 13 Jul 2009