Will Ferrell is an acquired taste, but films such as Talladega Nights showed that he could win over even those who thought themselves immune to his charms. I doubt they will be as pleased with this raucous but fundamentally limp comedy.

Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, the owner, coach and power forward for the Tropics basketball team from Flint, Michigan.

It is the Seventies and they are in the outlaw ABA League and require all sorts of showbiz stunts to draw the crowds.

Unless they reach fourth in the league and thus get subsumed into the regular NBA, they will be disbanded for ever.

Moon, assisted by a veteran NBA star with a wonky knee (Woody Harrelson) and the one decent player in his team (Andre Benjamin, of Outkast), tries to rally his boys for an unlikely pursuit of fourth place and glory.

He uses a myriad dodges to achieve the required result. It's simple fun. But, to be frank, the screenplay is all over the place.

Though the Seventies sporting atmosphere, including two ridiculous sporting commentators and a bevy of scantily clad cheerleaders, is sometimes nicely caught, you feel the laughs ought to come more freely.

Ferrell mugs his way through with enthusiasm, but Harrelson looks a bit dumbstruck by it all.