Surprisingly, it took David Beckham’s cameo in Guy Ritchie’s 2017 critical flop, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, to really make filmmakers think twice about misplacing their faith in a sports star in the hope their name will help sell the movie. Unfortunately for Ritchie’s abysmal screenplay, David Beckham’s cameo appearance as Trigger, a noble knight, was as expectedly wooden, characterless, and contrived as the man himself.
This wasn’t the first time Ritchie gave an ex-soccer player a feature debut, after Vinnie Jones’ stellar performance in the critically successful, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. At least the director wasn’t guilty of making the same mistake twice… Despite David Beckham’s horror show, there have actually been some great cameos made by present and former sports stars — let’s take a look at the best.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 Eric Cantona – Looking for Eric
Icon Film Distribution
The Frenchman actually made his name as somewhat of a maverick footballer in Europe and, most notably, at the English side with Manchester United. Revered as a sportsman, he rose to infamy when he kung-fu-kicked a fan during a game. Cantona was given his big screen break in master filmmaker Ken Loach’s small-budget Looking for Eric, a fantasy drama where a down-on-his-luck postal worker has a marijuana-induced trip and meets his idol, Eric Cantona.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
6 Derek Jeter – The Other Guys
Sony Pictures
Adam McKay’s comedy The Other Guys concerns the tale of two police officers, Terry and Allen (Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell), who are tasked with bringing down a dodgy capitalist while dealing with their own conflicting personalities. When recounting his professional demise, Officer Terry documents how he mistakenly shot Major League Baseball star, Derek Jeter. While his cameo was reduced to a mere line while lying shot in a Yankee Stadium gangway, the five-time World Series champion was a comical addition to one of the best comedies of the 2010s.
5 Michael Jordan – Space Jam
Warner Bros.
Michael Jordan was one of the first basketball players to truly transcend the sport. From corporate synergies with Nike and Gatorade, to a Looney Tunes cameo in 1997’s Space Jam — the sports icon was to basketball what Lionel Messi is to Football. In Joe Pyteka’s live-action animation hybrid, Michael Jordan appears as himself as he is abducted by Bugs Bunny and his fellow Looney Tunes. At the behest of Bugs Bunny, against the backing track of I Believe I Can Fly, Jordan, plays a game of basketball against the “Needlocks,” having to defeat them and their criminality.
4 Lance Armstrong - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
20th Century Fox
In 2004, Lance Armstrong was at the height of his athletic powers. A seven-time Tour de France winner, he was seemingly defying sports science. The American cyclist was in such hot demand that he starred in Rawson Marshall Thurber’s sports comedy, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
The movie follows the story of Vince Vaughn’s Peter La Fleur, who leads his gym’s dodgeball team to the holy grail: the dodgeball championship. Lance Armstrong’s cameo entails a motivational pep-talk to Peter who is on the verge of quitting, urging him that he wouldn’t have won the Tour de France five times consecutively if he shared the mentality. Well, that and a body pumped full of EPO…
3 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Airplane!
Paramount Pictures
Whether it be a doctor with a phobia of blood, a police officer afraid of criminals, or a basketball player with an irrational fear of basketballs, they’re probably in the wrong job. In the 1980s comedy Airplane!, former pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays), who has extreme anxiety about flying, is forced to pilot a plane when everyone on it comes down with food poisoning. Six-time NBA MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar plays under the alias of Roger Murdock as a decoy to divert a child’s critique of his performances during the NBA regular season.
2 Mike Tyson – The Hangover
Warner Bros. Pictures
Phil Collins and Mike Tyson — not a combination one would necessarily expect. Yet in Todd Phillips’ 2009 movie The Hangover, the former heavyweight champion of the world served up a hilarious Haymaker to the backing track of Collins’ In the Air Tonight. After Doug’s chaotic bachelor party in Las Vegas, the attendees inadvertently steal Tyson’s prized tiger. Returning the pet to an enraged Mike Tyson, a prospect that would strike the fear of god into anyone, the group is in for a typically rude awakening.
1 Vinnie Jones – Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
Gramercy Pictures
There was little in the way of actual acting required by Vinnie Jones in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, as he essentially played himself. A tough, no-nonsense cockney gangster. At least, that is how he was viewed on the soccer pitch. Jones was a part of Wimbledon Football Club’s infamous “Crazy Gang” of the ‘80s and ‘90s, where he gained a level of notoriety not seen in the sport since.
With Lock, Stock turning 25 this year, it marks a quarter of a century since Vinnie Jones’ rendition of enforcer, Big Chris, who along with his son, Little Chris, with their matching leather jackets, work as heavies for a mob boss, Harry (Patrick Moriarty). Jones is perfectly cast as an imposing, leather-clad geezer, with impeccable manners, and a detestation for swearing.
