Youth in professional sports are getting younger by the week. Just recently, 14-year-old Freddy Adu was selected by D.C. United, a Major League Soccer Team, and in turn became the youngest player in modern professional sports. Vince Vaughn would try that angle, except he likes them younger, as young as 5 years old if necessary. He wants them right out of the starting gate, at their best, at their most agile. A “Michael Jackson: The Sequel”, he’s not, but he plays a sports agent who resorts to the most unconventional methods to find the sports leaders of tomorrow.
The playground is the battlefield and through interviews with Patrick Ewing and the agent himself, he’s the only soldier who he believes is willing to charge on to that playground and baseball diamond, to find the best T-Ball players, the best hide-and-seekers, anything that will stuff his imitation leather wallet. I’m not even sure if he has an imitation leather wallet, but you just figure that if he’s snooping around playgrounds and talking to these little kids, trying to make deals with them, that’s probably all he can afford.
Vaughn, as with many of his other film roles, revs this one up just as much. He’s really game for this role and I can’t see how anyone wouldn’t be, what with the chance to reflect what many parents are actually aiming for with their kids. I used to live in a gated community in Pembroke Pines, Florida where the main attraction for people living there and visiting, was the golf course contained within. Sometime after Tiger Woods made it big, I’d see parents with their kids, some as young as the ones featured here, trying to teach them to swing the club correctly, hoping that they’ll swing hard enough, achieving a range enough to make the professionals jealous, and in turn, wallow in cash. It’s a sad case for sure, but I’ve witnessed that. Vaughn’s agent character probably sees it the same way, but as funny as his performance is, “Risky Business” isn’t so much a mockumentary as it is a reflection of reality.
