User Reviews

We watched this film with trepidation. The Farrelly brothers don't actually believe in subtlety. "The Ringer" has a cast of mentally challenged players; frankly one feared the worst. Well, as it turned out, this is not your typical movie by the masters of grossness. The direction was entrusted to Barry Blaustein and the writing to Ricky Blitt. While there is some grossness, as was perhaps expected, the makers are actually quite respectful of the people involved in the Special Olympics.

Don't get confused, this is a formula movie, or at least this is what the finished product feels like. The idea of Johnny Knoxville passing as one of the handicapped youths, sounded preposterous. Yet, Mr. Knoxville's performance is one of the reasons for watching it. The great Brian Cox is a hilarious presence as the uncle from hell. Lovely Katherine Heigl adds charm to the proceedings.

This is a fun film because it celebrates people that are less fortunate than the rest of us. They are all portrayed in a dignified manner.

people who think this is a small minded movie and offensive need to get a life. This movie does not poke fun at disabilities, in fact it applauds those with special needs, the only character to be made to look stupid here is johnny Knoxville's character.

funny one liners, good acting and an all round entertaining comedy.

Just watch it u may be surprised, the plot isn't exactly brilliant the acting isn't Oscar winning but none of that matters, the film has heart and is very entertaining like most farrelly brothers movies with the exception of stuck on you.

well worth a watch

As Head of Delegation for a Special Olympic Texas team who has athletes featured in this movie, I have to take exception with the concept of assuming the athletes are being teased and made fun of in this movie. I spent most of 3 months on the set watching the filming 2 years ago and I know how very carefully Special Olympics International has watched the development of this movie. They have been involved in every aspect of this movie, from script development to final product. I also know how very careful Special Olympics is with putting their seal of approval on projects. They simply do not endorse ANYTHING, yet they are completely and 100% behind this movie.

I have seen the movie and can't wait to take every member of my team. Many of them have seen the movie and indeed are in it. At the premiere in Austin December 6 my athletes were howling with laughter and having a great time. While I will admit that Johnny Knoxville, the Farrelly Brothers and Special Olympics do not seem to make the best mix in the world, this works. And it is a beautiful movie. There are a few dirty words (like Forrest Gump) and a few tasteless jokes, but it is screamingly funny and has worlds of heart. The athletes are always, ALWAYS treated with the utmost respect. Unlike most movies about the mentally handicapped, there are major parts in this movie played by genuine special Olympic athletes, and they used some 200 special Olympic extra's. This was a labor of love, on both sides of the camera. It deserves to be viewed and respected. The producers had a vision of bringing to life and light the fact that mentally challenged people are well rounded and enjoyable people. They did it beautifully. Go see the movie and laugh with all your heart.

I really didn't expect much from this movie because to be honest, I didn't her about it until a few weeks ago.

So I thought, "it's a Johnny Knoxville film from 2005 that apparently only a few watched....".

Well, on a Sunday afternoon I decided to give it a chance and it wasn't by any means a letdown. It's a very inventive black comedy filled with plenty of irreverence, some jokes that may be too much for the easily offended, and funny representations of how special athletes perform.

The acting is pretty funny specially by Knoxville who relies his acting skills oh physical comedy.

The rest of the cast performs really well and is as funny as the lead actor. Also, the very last scene that deals with a weird dancing is the highlight of the film.

Recommended for those who enjoy black comedy.

Good movies are great, bad movies are often still very entertaining, but this movie is absolutely horrible.

Acting of the main character: the worst. Storyline: really bad.

But really, the acting skills of the main character made switch off the movie before it ended (a first!)I just couldn't take it anymore.

The Ringer is directed by Barry W. Blaustein and is the story of a man named Stevie who, when his friend Stavvi loses some fingers, is pressured by his gambling uncle to enter the Special Olympics as a mentally slow man in order to earn a lot of money. After wrongly entering the Special Olympics, Stevie poses as a man named Jeffie, and runs across multiple conflicts throughout his time at the event. That's pretty much the entire movie.

I was actually expecting a complete pile of trash prior to watching The Ringer, but it wasn't completely awful. It had some good comedy throughout parts, and most of the acting was decent. Although The Ringer had some poor direction and a lazy script, it wasn't fully horrible. It had some good aspects.

The best thing for The Ringer was the acting. Johnny Knoxville was pretty good, as both of his characters. He technically was acting as a guy who was acting as another guy, which is somewhat confusing, but he played both Stevie and Jeffie pretty well. Brian Cox, who played Stevie's uncle, was the highlight of this movie for me, due to his good acting. He played a gambling man who was in deep with the wrong people, so he bet on Stevie winning the Special Olympics, and did it well. All of the other acting was fine. Nobody else did great, but there wasn't any bad acting either.

Some of the comedy was pulled off decently well. Although the film was making fun of mentally challenged people, it was supported by the actual Special Olympics, so I guess nobody can really defend them. A few lines that were written for laughs didn't receive any, and some of the jokes were pretty stale. However, a few lines did have me laughing, and laughing hard. Not all of the comedy is bad, just some of it.

The worst thing I found in The Ringer was the direction. It wasn't completely awful, but it was horribly bland and boring. Most of the time, I felt as if I were watching a cheap Lifetime movie, and I shouldn't have felt that way. Most of the shots were very boring, and the direction didn't do anything good for the film at all.

The script was also quite lazy. For example, a specific person's opinion on a subject will change from scene to scene, even though the subject may be a bit touchy. The script quickly brushed over these types of scenarios, and it felt very lazy and rushed. Most of the dialogue was somewhat cliché, and a lot of it was surprisingly flat. Not many lines had me asking questions, or even wanting to see more of the film. That's not a good thing.

Overall, The Ringer wasn't awful, but it most definitely wasn't good. Although it did contain some good acting and some funny comedy, those couldn't save The Ringer from a bad script and poor direction.

"Son, there are two types of people in this world - those who think quotes like 'I can count to potato' are funny, and those who don't." OK, so maybe those weren't the exact words of wisdom my grandfather once shared with me, but the meaning is the same. Some people just don't laugh at stupidity, and if you fall in this group then "The Ringer" probably isn't your wisest choice of investment this Christmas season.

That's not to say that "The Ringer" is nothing more than a stupid comedy. There are a handful of genuine laugh-out-loud moments, and surprisingly, there's a whole lot of sentiment. Unfortunately, and I hate to say this, but that's ultimately what drags it down.

Think about it. Johnny Knoxville rigs the Special Olympics in order to make some money. The Farrelly Brothers are producers. The screenplay is written by Ricky Blitt, one of the writers on "Family Guy." Should be knock-down, drag-out, envelope-pushing political incorrectness that dares to offend anybody who is brave enough to buy a ticket and watch it, right? Wrong. In fact, the movie goes out of its way to make sure the audience knows Johnny Knoxville is a good guy.

You see, he needs the money to help a guy have surgery who he couldn't bear to fire at work in the first place. And of course, he's reluctant to go along with his uncle's plan. And you know he's going to become best friends with all of the other Special Olympians. Knoxville spends so much of his time performing knightly actions that the movie essentially becomes a 90-minute infomercial for the real Special Olympics.

That is certainly something I don't want to knock because it does make the film likable. Many moviegoers will have their hearts warmed over the relationships Knoxville develops with the Special Olympians (even though the majority are portrayed by real actors with no real disabilities). Knoxville's soft heart leads to something that I thought was kind of weird - the movie is designed for you to actually root for him to win, despite the fact that he's a fraud.

The reason is reigning champion, Jimmy, is a jerk who you'll feel no sympathy for. Like my grandfather used to say, "Just because you're handicapped doesn't give you the right to be a jerk." He offered this nugget of wisdom once when a guy in a handicap parking spot flipped us off because we were walking too slowly behind his car.

So as an after school special this works well. But as a comedy? Well, it just wasn't as funny as I wanted it to be. Oh, I laughed, and I smiled, and I drooled over Katherine Heigl, but I never had to catch my breath or tend to a busted gut, nor did I ever miss dialogue because of overwhelming audience laughter.

So is it worth your hard-earned money? I honestly can't see a necessity to pay to see it on the big screen. Besides, it won't make a ton of money at the box office, so it'll be on DVD soon. Wait and make it a rental. It's not the comedy it should have been, but it has good intentions. And like granddad always said, "You can't always be the best at everything you do, but you can always be likable. It's not as easy for people to be hard on you when they see that your heart's in the right place."

Johnny Knoxville had two heads in 'Men in Black 2" and would do anything for money.

Johnny Knoxville has two heads in "The Ringer" and the big head will do anything for money. Unfortunately all his thinking is done by the little head to get what little heads always want.

Johnny Knoxville and Brian Cox are spectacular! Hilarious while being entirely calming and at the same time quite awkward. I've known a lot of unique beings and been through a lot so I have a lot of sympathy for people that are different. Also this is my 480th review which I am very proud of, my passion is films and to be famous so maybe someone important could see my opinions. I don't know if someone quirky can even gain success especially since I am 27 but I still have high faith.

Other reviews here have been praising this movie but it's average score of 5.4 is more indicative of its quality, as a very predictable comedy that turns sentimental towards the end.

All the ingredients are here: the far-fetched plot device needed to set up the scenario (which in this case is particularly stupid), the love interest, the evil love interest's boyfriend, the funny and/or weird sidekicks (in this case a group of mentally retarded people) and the sentimental ending.

Frankly, this movie does nothing new and most of the time it's not funny. Most of the laughs my friends got from this movie was one of them laughing inappropriately at the mentally retarded people. However, a lot of the time the laughs were intended and I find this to be a bit worrying. To its credit, despite some tasteless laughs the movie does do a fairly good job of treading a line between being too tame and too offensive, but still doesn't manage to be quite funny enough. Its message was predictable and poorly done. The ending was too felt like a quick-fix solution and feels tacked-on.

Overall, I find this to be a fairly entertaining movie with some good laughs, but they are rather sporadic, and the movie itself in terms of its plot is very predictable and not very memorable. Judging from other reviews, people have found a great message in this movie, but I am not among them unfortunately so I find it difficult to recommend this movie as much more than a by-the-numbers comedy.

Wow! I was actually struck dumb at several points throughout this film, so bewildered was I that something this awful could even get made, let alone distributed. By far the worst movie I have seen since Little Nicky. Filled with horribly uncomfortable, wildly implausible moments, completely lacking in any character worth rooting for, and with a plot whose sole purpose seemed to be to set up the longest one-joke movie since the dark days of the Saturday Night Live "one sort-of funny 3 minute sketch will make a great 90 minute movie!" era. Every person involved in the making, marketing, and distribution of this film should be ashamed of themselves.

I saw this movie on Christmas Eve. I wanted to see it because I'm a fan of Johnny Knoxville and it looked hilarious. It was a funny. It was also good to know that the Special Olympics okay-ed the movie, so it had to be somewhat factual. It was good movie. Johnny Knoxville was very childlike in his expressions which made him seem vulnerable and innocent in his actions. When the characters bonded, it was comedic as well as honest. All of the characters were perfect for their parts. They all did a great job at the movie. The movie was cute and funny at the perfect times. However, the movie was weak in some parts. Most importantly, the ending. It was almost predictable occasionally. But, overall, good movie except for the weak,too-fast ending.

Steve Barker (Johnny Knoxville) hates his job but after over two years of working, receives a promotion. His first duty is to fire his friend Stavi (Luis Ávalos), who is the janitor. Steve reluctantly does so, but hires him to work around his apartment. Stavi gets three fingers cut off in a lawn-mower accident, and reveals that he does not have health insurance. Steve must raise $28,000 within a few weeks to pay for the surgery to re-attach his friend's fingers. His sleazy uncle Gary (Brian Cox), owes $40,000 in gambling debts and suggests that they fix the Special Olympics in in order to solve both of their financial problems. Steve, who competed in track and field in high school as well as having acted in the drama club, reluctantly enters the Special Olympics in the guise of a high functioning young man with a developmental disability named Jeffy.

The Ringer took 7 years to get made due to studios being put off by its premise. The script gained more traction once it got the endorsement of the Special Olympics and executive producer Peter Farrelly is himself a volunteer with Best Buddies, an organization that provides mentorships to special needs persons, and has routinely included characters in his films such as There's Something About Mary and Stuck on You. The movie also serves a test vehicle for Johnny Knoxville's ability to carry a comedy outside of his Jackass wheelhouse (Dukes of Hazzard reboot aside) and the movie is actually a very funny and surprisingly sweet film that shows just how good a leading man Knoxville can be.

Despite a premise that could easily be turned towards the lowest common denominator, the movie does a good job of deriving humor from its premise without making itself a one joke affair. The Special Athletes who make up the supporting cast aren't defined solely by their disability and take a lot of pride and dignity in their training and goals. When the special athletes find out about Steve and Gary's scam they're understandably angered by it but when they find out why he did it they actually work with him to help while also playing to their own desires to take the arrogant champion, Jimmy Washington, down a peg by breaking his multi year streak. There's a lot of humanity on display in this movie that makes these characters three dimensional but still allows them to be both fun and funny.

Johnny Knoxville is very good playing Steve Barker who's a likable good natured slob who just wants to do right by his friend, and he showcases some really good comic energy and timing as he switches between himself and the persona he's created with Jeffy. Katherine Heigl plays Lynn, a volunteer with the Special Olympics who is also a love interest for Knoxville's character and she plays the character with sweetness and sincerity and has genuinely desire to help and foster persons with special needs due to her own experience with her brother. Brian Cox is despicably good as Steve's sleazy, lecherous, gambling uncle Gary, and the exchanges between Cox and Knoxville are incredibly well done with Knoxville reacting just perfectly to Gary's casual ableism.

The Ringer takes a subject that could've easily been played too safe or too lowbrow and finds the perfect balance for it. While not every joke lands, the ratio is more hits than misses and an assortment of likable characters who feel fully formed and not just punchline machines give the movie a level of sweetness and sincerity that's uncommon in this type of movie.

"It is in the comprehension of the physically disabled, or disordered . . . that we are behind our age . . . . Sympathy as a fine art is backward in the growth of progress . . . ." Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

The Ringer is worth seeing just to figure out how a comedy centered on The Special Olympics could even be made, much less supported by the organization. I was pleasantly surprised—there are some laughs and muchrespect where condescension could have been the comic device.

Johnny Knoxville's Steve is in a nowhere job, when he gets into a situation that demands a considerable sum of money. His shady uncle Brian Cox devises a plan to have Steve enter the Olympics as a special needs person in order to throw over the reigning champ and thereby cause considerable gambling winnings. The situation requires Knoxville's Steve to become "Jeffy" and walk carefully between humor and extreme political incorrectness. He succeeds by underplaying gags and lightly sprinkling the sweetness.

Of course, there's Steve's love interest, Lynn (Katherine Heigl), with whom the scenes sometimes stretch too long. But the moments with his handicapped buddies are alive with warmth, self effacement, and wisdom enhanced by the problematic notion that special people shouldn't be smart but are. Herein lies the essential irony of the premise: The humor is too often grounded on our preconceived notion that disabled people can barely utter a sentence. Does the humor of their actually uttering bright thoughts come from that prejudice? In order to accept the premise that special people can be funny because of their disabilities, I had to suspend an automatic reaction against the inherent incorrectness.

A moment showing how truly inspired this comedy could have been occurs when Steve trains to become "Jeffy." He's watching videos that include Rain Man, I am Sam, and The Best of Chevy Chase. The last video raises the immortal observation that the inmates are sometimes saner than their captors.

The most important thing to remember about The Ringer is that it's a Farrelly Brothers production, after they've done films like Stuck on You (2003) and Fever Pitch (2005). Largely because of films like Dumb & Dumber (1994) and There's Something About Mary (1998), which were fairly outrageous comedies for mainstream films in the mid-1990s, the Farrelly Brothers developed a reputation for daring films where the jokes kept arriving one after the other. Because of that, some people have been disappointed with their more recent films, which are just as concerned with being sweet and romantic as they are with being funny. But the truth is that their films have always been sweet, romantic comedies. They've just mellowed a bit over the years. They're not quite as frantic as they used to be, the jokes are not non-stop (or meant to be), we've gotten more used to their sensibility, and others have focused on making comedies even more outrageous.

Even thought the Farrelly Brothers didn't write or direct The Ringer, their stamp is all over the film, and it should be thought of as much or more as a Farrelly Brothers film than a Johnny Knoxville vehicle, and certainly it seems more like a Farrelly Brothers film than a Barry W. Blaustein film. This is only Blaustein's second turn in the director's chair, and with his first film a wrestling documentary from 1999, Blaustein is more well known at this point as a writer of several Eddie Murphy films. The Ringer scripter Ricky Blitt has mostly worked in television, on shows such as "Family Guy" and "The Jeff Foxworthy Show".

Like most of the Farrelly Brothers' films, The Ringer focuses on people who are outcasts for some reason--people who don't fit into social norms. But despite misconceptions to the contrary (and other filmmakers actually doing this), the Farrelly Brothers have never really ridiculed those people. Their concern is instead to show how people and things that are different are valuable in ways that mainstream society might not expect; to show how people who are different have universal human characteristics, but at the same time, not to underplay their differences. They sincerely love their characters. So expecting The Ringer to approach its subject matter in a way that would make fun of it or ridicule it would be off-base--not because they're being politically correct, but because it's not consistent with the Farrelly Brothers' world-view (and thus to take The Ringer as offensive is particularly bizarre). Maybe that's why, over the years, they've shifted slightly away from outrageous comedy as a focus--they may have felt that that genre contributed to audiences misreading them. So you shouldn't expect The Ringer to be primarily concerned with getting big laughs, either. It's more just quirky.

Of course Knoxville gets to do some of the physical stunts that made him famous, and The Ringer is funny at times, but the humor arrives more strongly in the second half, and rather than laughing at the Special Olympics, with the audience members belonging to the mainstream, the humor here obtains by inducting you (just like Knoxville) into the Special Olympics fold so that you can laugh at the mainstream (and maybe that's more what people are finding offensive--not everyone embraces the different like the Farrelly Brothers do). At the same time, The Ringer develops a romance subplot that shouldn't be unexpected.

However, that Knoxville does a bit of his usual shtick may be one of the small flaws here. More than likely he took this role in an attempt to stretch his range a bit, which he does well, but the Jackass-styled stunts, as entertaining and funny as they are at times, probably contribute to some viewers misreading the film and taking it for a failure because it's not making them laugh enough, or it isn't outrageous enough. Another slight flaw might be that the first half lingers a bit too long--The Ringer comes to a boil very slowly, but it's an enjoyable film if you take it for what it is rather than trying to force it into a narrow genre compartment.

a la forest gump, and PC summer camps with "non-competitive" games where everyone wins, this movie accepts the idea that even them most disadvantaged (that's PC) are basically just like us; the hero, not really, bridges the gap as he is not stupid or awkward or particularly funny looking but acts that way; yes, it's akin to jerry lewis aping MS patients, but somehow OK; of course, the hero-con man has the hots for a blonde babe who oversees the special olympic program, unlike the others he acts like who don't know a babe from the phone book; why a 5? because it is an utterly low-life, bottom of the barrel movie that has poked a hole, albeit unwittingly, in today's astonishingly, I feel so much better, PC culture

I thought this was a real "escape" kind of movie. No one expected it to get Oscar nominations - It's purely for entertainment. I really enjoyed how Johnny Knoxville is obviously really connecting with the actors who play the Special Olympians. In one scene he says to someone who uses the word retarded... "I don't wanna ever hear you say that word again, you hear me? I mean it." (not word for word but you get the drift) I honestly felt Johnny Knoxville meant it. Not his character, but him personally. That was nice. I was also really impressed with the actors who played the Special Olympians. If you don't enjoy this movie a little, you obviously don't have much of a sense of humor. (Think one-liners and corny stuff, not Eddie Murphy "Raw") I was also impressed to see the Johnny Knoxville could make a PG13 movie and not come across as an idiot. Good job Johnny, not bad acting either. (I mean there's always worse actors than him out there. Like Jessica Simpson, Andie McDowell, Freddie Prinz Jr, Skeet Ulrich, Jordana Brewster, Paris Hilton, James VanDerbeek, Wil Shatner - yeah I said it... Wil Shanter... Antonio Banderas, Stephen Segal, anyway, I digress) I thought this movie was a nice change of pace form all the explosions and cop movies. I gave it a 6/10 - a good lazy Sunday afternoon movie.

Despicable is really the only word which can be used to describe this movie. People might defend it by saying that they portray the handicapped athletes in a favorable manner, which is partly true in comparison to some of the other characters, but there is no getting around the fact that the movie makes jokes about mentally retarded people. The movie makers want the viewers to laugh when they see a retarded person slap himself in the chest or say something stupid or do something stupid, and that is wrong on so man different levels. I am not a "worried mother". I am a 16 year old boy, who this movie is targeted to and even I can see how mean spirited it is. The makers think they can make jokes about retarded people, claim it was in good fun and think they can get away with it. Wrong. But, even once you look beyond this despicable aspect, the movie still isn't funny. There are a few small good jokes they make, but that is the extent to which this movie has any enjoyable aspects. Avoid at all costs.

I like many people saw the trailer for this film and instantly felt angry at the Farrelly's for crossing the line and taking the rip out of the disabled, after seeing it the only person having the rip taken out of him was johnny Knoxville who is brilliantly cast as the stooge of his addicted gambler uncle, Brian Cox.

The story of a man who fakes mental disability in order to compete in the special Olympics and win money in a betting scandal seems like it would be just too awful to be believed. But after demanding to be considered for a management condition and given the job of firing Stavi the cleaner, Johnny Knoxville's nice guy character decides to hire him as a gardener, only for him to chop his fingers off. Needing several thousand dollars to pay his hospital bills, he takes the advice of his twisted uncle, played superbly by Brian Cox, to fake disability and rig the special Olympics.

To those who doubt the quality of the film, I say trust the highest raters, this is a very funny film! Don't get me wrong film fans, if you want to see a classic comedy try Duck Soup and Annie Hall, but this is really funny and not only that but the film does have it's heart firmly in the right place.

Like Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey this is one of the best underrated comedies and a true hidden gem.

If you really think about it, we're sort of taking a step backwards in Johnny Knoxvilles career; going from jackass to mentally challenged, he still manages to crack us up. The Ringer was amazingly humorous, and shows a lighter side of mental retardation. This movie was far aside from 'Riding the Bus with My Sister', however The Ringer portrays similarities and beyond, in which the intellect of some handicapped people is much better than expected.

The plot was pretty straight-forward (have a normal person enter the special Olympics to try to make money). The audience received what the preview ensured for us, and I was glad to see that it lived up to it's hype... as little as there was.

I gave The Ringer 6 out of 10 stars: very funny, but not memorable. This movie is perfect for adolescents trying to waste a Friday night.