No. 96 : Bulls (2026) 101/102
Oh, this one is a shocker and definitely the lowest tier of
Shannon you’ll find. I’m guessing he lost a bet to be in this or owed the
director a favour, because it is a risible effort that even falls short of being
entertainingly bad.
The film opens with a caption: ‘Greater Manchester 1975'. A
young boy is disturbed from his darts playing to watch the World Championship
of Darts final. Despite its celebrated title, this world championship seems to
be taking place in someone’s basement with no crowd – maybe it was an earlier,
forgotten, Covid epidemic event?
Anyway, from the shadows steps up Shannon whom the
commentator tells us is Alistair Whitlock, the best player in the world. He
makes an arse of his first two darts and had an impossible shot for the bull to
win, which of course he makes. He addresses the camera and greets the boy
before disappearing for the rest of the film. We now must endure the remainder of the movie, Shannon free, with him having had one brief scene and one line. Still, he wouldn’t lend his name to an inferior product, would he? You bet!
We flash forward to the present day and meet up with two young men who run a failing bar in Indiana. Hank and Austin are half brothers and too young to be the boy in the pre-credit sequence. They do however like darts and play in a league but are very poor. They lose to an obese couple who say “Showtime Baby” incessantly and they rely on a couple of regulars to keep their bar afloat. One is an embittered rusty nail drinker and the other makes fanciful claims like he was a producer on ‘Back to the Future’ and that he was a chef in a French restaurant. Forget these losers, they’ll have no bearing on the film’s proceedings!
The game they play is a strange variation on the darts we know called ‘Cricket’. I’d never heard of it and it seems madly complicated. I’m not sure why good old 501 wouldn’t suffice, but I’m guessing the reliance on the bull being hit a lot was a key factor. One of the fatties also offers up a strange rule – if you catch a dart that bounces out of the board, you can throw it again – I doubt that snippet will become relevant!
The heels in this show are the Gallyan brothers – two obnoxious arseholes from Manchester. They have won the world title 9 times in a row and are soon to match Shannon’s record. The ’World Championship’ is a best of three heads up match which seems somewhat slight for such an august event! The title match collapses due to bad behaviour and the man from the Darts Championship, presumably having watched ‘Rocky’, decides to give an underdog a shot at the title. Of course, he picks our lads who have a week to become title contenders.
Fortunately, the rusty nail drinker Ian steps up to train
them. Unsurprisingly, as he’s the only character in his 50’s, he’s Shannon’s son
from the preamble. What follows is a predictable training session which should
have had that ‘Montage’ song running over it. To pad out the running time there
is an awfully awkward gay, inter racial romance between one brother and a man
who sells dart flights and the other brother also finds romance when disposing
of a fake vagina (don’t ask!) when he gets chatted up by an attractive woman who
immediately and unfeasibly becomes his love interest.
With the big match on the horizon can our hapless duo win
the title and show those horrible English people how darts is really played?
This was a terrible film with some of the worst acting you
will ever see. The script makes no sense and the game played is so complicated
you’ve no idea what’s going on. I had no investment in the two vapid leads and
the surprises, as they were, were phoned in from miles away. One impossible
dart to win it – oh no it’s bounced out…!
The film borrowed heavily from ‘Dodgeball’, a fact seemingly
acknowledged by the director given there was an Average Joes shirt in the
audience. They had the two sports anchors doing the commentary bit, with the
funny angle here being that one liked a drink.
The Ian/son character and his relationship with his
seemingly dead Dad wasn’t explored at all and the whole thing was just an
unbelievable and pointless mess that failed to entertain on any level. The two
Manchester brothers were graduates of the Dick Van Dyke school of accents, and
it was no surprise to learn that they were both Americans with this film being their
one credit. Maybe the director found them in a bar?
Unless you love revelling in really shitty films, I’d give
this one a miss if I were you and shame on you Mr Shannon to lending your name
to this witless and unfunny mess. Bull's a hit? Bullshit definitely.
When is Shannon-On? - 00.00.46
Outcome : Not seen after the pre-credits sequence and presumably dead.
Shannon Stars - 0.5/5
Film Stars - 0.5/5
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