Family sports comedy, starring Will Ferrell. Phil Weston (Ferrell) has long had to put up with his own father Buck's (Robert Duvall) competitive and overbearing nature. But when Phil's son joins a Little League football team, Phil finds that his own competitive nature hasn't been buried as well as he thought, and it gets worse when he learns that Buck has decided to coach a rival team. Before long, Phil is gaining enemies all over the place as he browbeats his team with the attitude that winning is everything.  is at his full, frenzied power as Phil Weston, a married, uncoordinated would-be sportsman with an uncoordinated would-be sportsman son--and an unresolved relationship with his coach father, Buck (), who has very little tolerance for the uncoordinated. When Buck trades his own grandson to a real loser of a little league soccer team, Phil naturally takes over underdog coaching duties and the two men butt heads. You could easily, and perhaps rightfully, dismiss all of this as a dumb, demented Meatballs or Bad News Bears rip-off, but it's pleasantly dumb and sometimes hysterically demented: Encouraged by his neighbor, ex-Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka (yes, playing himself), Phil stops his vitamin regimen and becomes wildly addicted to regular doses of caffeine, which turns him into a monster of a team leader. In addition to Ferrell, Duvall does a doozy of a comic riff on his Great Santini role, and even Ditka is unexpectedly funny. It's a formula film with just enough far-out notions to keep you chuckling. -- Steve Wiecking Synopsis In KICKING & SCREAMING, funny man Will Ferrell's ( Old School, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy) humorous man-child antics meet actual kids on the soccer pitch. He plays vitamin salesman Phil Weston, a sensitive man easily capable of both crying and sewing. Unfortunately for Phil, these qualities have never quite endeared him to his tough-as-nails father, Buck (Robert Duvall) who will stop at nothing to one-up Phil. He goes so far as benching Phil's 10-year-old son - his own grandson - on the youth soccer team he coaches. Upon Phil's begging to get his son more playing time, Buck trades his grandson to the last-place team, the Tigers. Not just any normal cellar-dwelling outfit, the Tigers feature a cast of loveable losers who prefer eating worms and telling jokes to playing soccer. When the Tigers' coach leaves, putting the season on the line, an inexperienced Phil steps in to helm his son's new team. With help from Buck's neighbour and rival, real-life football coach Mike Ditka - hilariously playing himself - the Tigers turn their season around. Fuelled by a raging caffeine habit, Phil starts to overly obsess with beating Buck, losing sight of why he took the job in the first place - to be a better dad to his own son. Director Jesse Dylan ( American Wedding) is a natural for the story-line, being famed musician Bob Dylan's son. Farrell, for once, is content to play straight arrow to the crazy tykes in the first half of the film, before he unleashes his trademark zaniness in the latter half. Those attributes alone, along with fun-loving family themes, make Kicking & Screaming a treat for fans both young and old.