Fired Up confounds all expectations. While masquerading as a generic teen sex comedy (is there any other kind of teen comedy these days?) it manages to be genuinely hilarious, and subtly subversive. And it’s a cheerleader movie, which means it’s automatically trained to be aggressive, be-be aggressive.
Yes, I love the undernourished, poorly served cheerleader movie. It caters to that dark side in all of us – the one that is certain we could never actually like a cheerleader in person, but can’t help but wish we too could land a front handspring step out, round-off back-handspring step-out, round-off back handspring, full-twisting layout. In case you don’t speak fluent Bring It On, my point is that while Fired Up may only have to compete with one genuine giant of the genre, it casts a long shadow.
Fired Up succeeds because it embraces its ancestor, and every other teen movie cliché to boot. I don’t mean in the Wayans brothers way, but rather, it unceremoniously produces every pact/speed bump/redemption beat while making it clear the entire time that the plot isn’t the point.
That plot? Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Nick (Eric Christian Olsen) are high school jocks who have sewn every wild oat they can in their current location. Looking for fresher, if not greener pastures, they con their way onto their school’s cheer squad to make it all the way to cheer camp. One falls in love, one falls in lust, and together they find their… you get the picture.
Once you shake off the initial unease at the fact that is has clearly been a decade since D’Agosto and Olsen were teenagers you will find yourself swept along by the witty banter of the pair. They have an easy chemistry and are served well by a zany script.
The core purpose in this seems to be the mocking of every available character. Of particular note is one love interest’s spectacularly boorish boyfriend Dr Rick, who is so overplayed by David Walton he should make you want to remove your own eyes. Instead, surrounded by characters who prance around like they’re in a farce, while committing to their roles utterly, Dr Rick slots in perfectly. His every entrance is punctuated by some grating 90′s tune that we are all secretly embarrassed by (because somewhere in our collection lies at least one Chumbawumba or Breakfast at Tiffany’s).
There are at least a dozen supporting characters who have been fleshed out enough to have their own running gag that is actually funny. Witness the peerless John Michael Higgins as a cheer coach so dedicated to his sport he has lost all rational thought, and Adhir Kalyan’s mandatory gay in the village unwittingly advising Dr Rick of the best part of the woods to find an anonymous partner. Special note must also go to rival squad the Panthers, who share ten lines, one hand gesture and a very awkward way of walking, but still manage to be memorable.
Somehow it avoids falling into the spoof category – the section where movies go to die of irrelevance in 5 years time. The closest it comes to tipping over the edge is in the middle of a climactic cheer competition when the obligatory emotional break-through/mid routine change occurs. Both Nick (and a judge from the sidelines) note there really isn’t meant to be this much talking in the middle of such an event.
Ultimately it falls short of classic comedy, but Fired Up is so surprisingly good you really won’t mind. Unless you hate cheerleading movies, in which case I really don’t know what’s wrong with you.
