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.
