Teen comedy clichés abound in Fired Up, which at first glance appears to be a guy-centric Bring It On rip-off. Nothing wrong with that at all – teen comedy is all about variation on a theme. Unfortunately, the variation here is rampant misogyny, idiocy and elitism.
Shawn and Nick (Nicholas D’Agosto and Eric Olsen) are our two ‘heroes’, but rather than go down the usual road of having likeable losers in the lead roles, here the film opts for a couple of football playing heartthrob jocks, who ditch Sports camp in favour of cheerleading classes in order to ‘meet chicks’.
Being Alpha males (or obnoxious, bland GAP-clones, depending on your point of view), they have wild success, until naturally, one of them falls for head cheerleader Carly, the only girl in the film with the wit to see through the guy’s Machiavellian scheme, and the whole thing spirals into typical RomCom territory.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the premise but the wobbly script seems to assume that the jokes will just materialise from the scenario. With better leads they may have, but here we get endless mugging, while every female in the film is treated as a complete idiot.
Some of the gags do work, there’s a nice running joke about the team mascots never being seen out of costume and, despite being eminently dislikable, there is a believable dynamic between the leads. Sadly these are never allowed to develop and any goodwill is undermined by an unpleasant, bigoted streak that runs throughout.
In among the supporting stereotypes (evil boyfriend, lesbian cheerleader, gay male cheerleaders) there is some solid support work, but again, it’s constantly crowded out by the gurning leads. The dialogue itself is well crafted, but completely ruined by the hammy delivery, while the dirty jokes, not to mention acres of teenage flesh, seem aimed at a much older (and possibly grubbier) audience than the plot. More Get It Off than Bring It On, this could have been an entertaining waste of time but ends up being a complete waste of space.
