7 / 10
Fired Up! is the cheerleading-camp comedy Will Gluck directed the year before he made Easy A and the year before that, Friends With Benefits. It stars Nicholas D’Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen as two high school football players who ditch football camp for cheerleading camp to chase girls, with Sarah Roemer as the head cheerleader who sees through the scheme and John Michael Higgins as the camp’s head coach with the F.U. gag that gives the film its title. The critical reception was brutal (Rotten Tomatoes 25%, Roger Ebert disliked it actively, the film lost money at the box office). The Letterboxd reappraisal has been kinder. I am siding with the reappraisal at 7. The film is funnier than its reputation, the chemistry between the leads works, and Gluck’s instincts as a director are visible enough that watching it now is also watching him learn the craft he would use on better films immediately afterward.
The 7 also reflects that I watched the production happen. I was at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, where the cheerleading camp orientation and practice sequences were filmed, every weekday for months while the crew built sets, ran rehearsals, and shot the exteriors. Watching a production from the outside teaches you what’s actually involved in making a competent 90-minute studio comedy. The film you see on screen is the product of a lot of people doing a lot of careful work to make something that looks effortless. The Arboretum shoot was disciplined, professional, and matter-of-fact in the way film productions are when they are not screwing around. The discipline is visible in the finished film if you know what to look for.
What The Production Actually Looked Like
The Arboretum is one of the most-filmed locations in Southern California. It has stood in for deepest Africa, the South Pacific, the Amazon, the wild west, and dozens of cinematic somewhere-elses since the 1930s. The Tarzan films shot there. Fantasy Island used the Queen Anne Cottage as Mr. Roarke’s residence in every opening. Bridesmaids filmed its final scene at the Bauer Lawn. The peacocks who roam the grounds have been picked up on the soundtracks of more films than they have any right to appear in. The location is a working backlot dressed up as a public garden.
For Fired Up!, the cheerleading camp was constructed at the Arboretum as a temporary set, with additional camp interiors and the main camp setting shot at Occidental College in Eagle Rock. The build process is the part of film production most audiences never see. You don’t just show up with cameras. You set up the location for what the script requires: tents, signs, practice spaces, holding areas for extras, monitor stations, craft services, equipment trucks, and the dozens of other invisible infrastructure pieces that make 30 seconds of finished footage possible. Watching this happen over months gives you a specific appreciation for how much of professional filmmaking is logistics rather than art. The art is the visible 5% that the logistics make possible.
D’Agosto and Olsen did their own cheer training. The producers brought in Zach Woodlee, a professional choreographer, and ran the leads through two and a half weeks of cheer routines, stunt work, and partner choreography. You can see this in the finished film when the boys do the partner stunts. They are not faking it. They learned the routines. The commitment is part of what makes the comedy land: the gag is that two football players are doing cheerleading, but the cheerleading they’re doing is real cheerleading, which gives the gag a foundation other “fish out of water” comedies often skip.
For Writers
Production commitment shows on screen. When actors do their own physical work, the comedy that follows lands differently than when stunt doubles do it for them. The gag in Fired Up! that the boys are doing real cheerleading routines makes their incompetence at the beginning and their improvement by the end feel earned rather than narrated. In prose, the equivalent is doing the research that makes your scene specifics correct. Generic specifics signal that the writer didn’t bother. Real specifics signal that the writer cared. Readers notice the difference even when they can’t articulate why.
The Lead Chemistry
Nicholas D’Agosto as Shawn Colfax and Eric Christian Olsen as Nick Brady carry the film on chemistry alone. The premise (two football players sneak into cheerleading camp to chase girls) is thin enough that the film would collapse without two leads who can sell the friendship as the actual emotional content. D’Agosto and Olsen do. Their delivery is fast, snappy, and confident in the way that makes you believe these two have been making each other laugh since junior high. The buddy comedy that the film aspires to is what the chemistry delivers. The cheerleading comedy is what they are doing while the buddy comedy is happening.
D’Agosto plays Shawn as the slightly more grounded one, the one who is going to fall for the head cheerleader and grow up across the film. Olsen plays Nick as the one whose arc is shorter because his cynicism is more durable. Both characters are douchebags at the opening (the film does not pretend otherwise) and both are slightly less douchebag-y by the end (the film does not pretend they have transformed into princes). The arcs are modest. The arcs are also honest. Most teen comedies overstate the redemption to make the audience feel good. Fired Up! is content to let its leads end the film as people you would still be wary of, just slightly more capable of recognizing their own behavior than they were at the start. That is the right register for the material.
Both actors were also significantly older than the high school characters they were playing. Olsen was 31 during filming. D’Agosto was 28. This is standard Hollywood practice (Beverly Hills 90210, every teen show that’s ever been made) and the film knows the audience knows. Neither actor pretends to be 17. They play the energy of 17, which is what the genre requires.
John Michael Higgins And The Supporting Cast
John Michael Higgins as Coach Keith is the film’s most reliable comedic engine. Higgins is a Christopher Guest stock company veteran (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration) whose comedy is built on extreme commitment to characters who do not realize how absurd they are. Coach Keith is exactly that: a man genuinely passionate about cheerleading who does not understand why “Fired Up” abbreviates to F.U. in a way the campers find amusing. Every scene with Higgins is funnier than the surrounding material because Higgins is doing comedy at a level the rest of the cast is not quite reaching. The F.U. gag works because Higgins plays Keith’s complete obliviousness to the joke as a sincere character trait. He genuinely cannot see why his abbreviation might be a problem. The audience can. Keith cannot. That is where the comedy lives.
Sarah Roemer as Carly does the work the role requires. Carly is the head cheerleader who sees through Shawn’s scheme, the one the film needs to be smart enough to make Shawn’s eventual genuine interest in her feel earned. Roemer plays her as competent and watchful, not as the airhead the genre default would have produced. The role is underwritten (Carly is more a function than a character) but Roemer fills in what the script leaves out.
Molly Sims as Diora, the camp’s other counselor and Coach Keith’s wife, gets a small role and makes it work. David Walton as Dr. Rick, Carly’s scumbag pre-med boyfriend, is the kind of one-note villain teen comedies require. Walton plays the note as written. Hayley Marie Norman as Angela is the breakout supporting performance and the one Roger Ebert specifically noted in his negative review. Ebert observed that Norman had “the nicest smile and the best personality” of anyone in the cast and that the film “never deals with her,” which is a fair criticism. Norman steals scenes she is not given the room to fully inhabit. She would go on to better work afterward.
What Works
The film is genuinely funny when it commits to its premise. The F.U. gag earns its repetition by Higgins playing the obliviousness completely. The “you gotta risk it to get the biscuit” line earns its place by being the kind of cheerleader-philosophy phrase that sounds inane in isolation and becomes a running joke through repetition. The dialogue between Shawn and Nick is rapid-fire enough that the jokes that don’t land get swept away by the next ones that do. The film operates on the law of comedic averages: throw enough jokes at the audience, half of them land, the half that land are what the audience remembers.
The cheerleading sequences are genuinely impressive. The choreography is real. The stunts are real. The film could have faked them and saved time and money. It didn’t. The commitment to actual cheerleading craft is part of what gives the film its specific texture and part of why the comedy lands when it does. You believe these characters are at a real cheerleading camp because the cheerleading you’re watching is real cheerleading.
Will Gluck’s direction is more confident than a first-time studio comedy director usually delivers. The pacing is brisk (90 minutes flat). The camera placement is competent. The performances are calibrated to the same energy level rather than fighting each other. None of this is showy work. It is the kind of basic professional competence that lets the comedy operate without the direction getting in its way. The next year, Gluck would make Easy A. The year after that, Friends With Benefits. The instincts that made those films work are visible in nascent form here.
What Doesn’t Work
The film has real flaws that the 7 accounts for honestly.
Some of the comedy hasn’t aged well. The “gay panic” jokes that 2009 teen comedies trafficked in are still here and they land less easily than they did then. The film is generally more thoughtful than its peers about female characters (Carly is allowed to be smarter than the boys, the cheerleaders are not just decoration), but the script still operates inside the genre’s basic assumption that the protagonists’ goal is to score and that the women are obstacles rather than people. The film mitigates this more than it could, but the underlying frame is what it is.
The boys are jerks. Roger Ebert’s critique is not wrong about this. Shawn and Nick at the start of the film are predatory in ways the film treats as charming, and the arc to “slightly less predatory by the end” is shorter than the runtime suggests it should be. The chemistry between the leads makes the jerk-protagonists watchable. It does not make them admirable. Viewers who need their comedy protagonists to be likable from frame one will struggle with this film. Viewers who can hold “watchable” and “jerk” simultaneously in their head will be fine.
The Hayley Marie Norman observation is correct: Angela is the most interesting peripheral character and the film never finds her a scene to do anything with. Several other supporting cheerleaders also feel like missed opportunities. The film is so committed to the buddy dynamic between Shawn and Nick that it underdevelops most of the ensemble around them. The choice produces a tighter comedy but a thinner world.
The final cheerleading competition sequence is the film’s weakest passage. The stakes are unclear, the choreography is hard to follow, and the resolution lands as plot mechanics rather than character payoff. Bring It On (2000), which the film is in some sense a male-pov answer to, handled the competition sequence with more clarity. Fired Up! does not match that bar. The climax is what it is. The film survives the climax because the comedy across the rest of the runtime has earned enough goodwill.
Will Gluck’s Debut
The most interesting thing about Fired Up! in retrospect is that it is Will Gluck’s first feature. Watching it now is also watching the director who would make Easy A (2010) work out his instincts in real time. Easy A is a substantially better film. It is also recognizably a film by the same director: rapid-fire dialogue, competent ensemble management, comedy that respects its female characters more than the genre defaults require, brisk pacing, a willingness to let small character moments breathe inside the comedic structure. The 2010 film is the 2009 film with two more years of craft and a sharper script. The line from Fired Up! to Easy A is clearer than most directorial leaps look.
Gluck’s career since (Easy A, Friends With Benefits, Annie, Peter Rabbit, the Sony Spider-Man involvement) has been uneven, but his comedy instincts at their best are real. Fired Up! is the prototype. Watching the prototype after watching the polished versions is part of the film’s interest if you care about how directors develop.
For Writers
First works are worth studying alongside the later, better works by the same artist. The instincts are present in the early piece in unrefined form. You can see what the artist already knew how to do, what they had not yet figured out, and which weaknesses they would eventually grow past. Reading a writer’s first novel after their fifth is the equivalent exercise. The early book often contains the same preoccupations in cruder form and reveals which elements of the mature work are durable choices versus inherited defaults. If you are a working writer, study the first books of writers you admire. The development arc is visible. The development arc is also instructive.
The Verdict
Fired Up! is a 7. It is funnier than its 25% Rotten Tomatoes score suggests. It is also not as good as its most committed defenders claim. The chemistry between D’Agosto and Olsen carries the film. John Michael Higgins is the comedic engine. Will Gluck’s direction is more confident than a first-time studio comedy director usually delivers. The cheerleading is real. The jokes that land are quotable. The jokes that don’t land get swept away by pace. The flaws are real and named: some material hasn’t aged, the protagonists are jerks, the ensemble around them is underdeveloped, the climax is the film’s weakest passage.
The personal angle: watching the Arboretum production happen every weekday for months gave me a specific affection for what the film is doing. Productions are work. The work is mostly invisible. Films you enjoy without seeing the work are easier to dismiss. Films you watch get made teach you that even the comedies you don’t love are the product of a lot of people doing their jobs at a high level. Fired Up! is not a great film. It is a competently made comedy that earns its 7 on the strength of its leads, its director’s instincts, and the quality of work the production put into making something this disposable look this effortless. Watch it on a Friday night with low expectations. It will exceed them.
FAQ
Where was Fired Up! filmed?
Primarily in the Los Angeles area. The cheerleading camp practice and orientation sequences were shot at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia. The main cheer camp setting was Occidental College in Eagle Rock. The football game sequence was shot at Calabasas High School. The pool scene was shot at Long Beach Polytechnic High School. The fictional Illinois setting was constructed entirely from Southern California locations, which is standard Hollywood practice.
What is the Arboretum’s filming history?
Extensive. The Los Angeles County Arboretum has been a working film location since the 1930s. The Tarzan films of the late 1930s and 1940s shot there. Notorious (1946) used the grounds. The Fantasy Island TV series (1977-1984) used the Queen Anne Cottage as Mr. Roarke’s residence in every opening sequence. Anaconda (1997) shot the Amazon sequences there. Bridesmaids (2011) filmed its final scene at the Bauer Lawn and Fountains. The Katy Perry “Roar” video used the grounds. The garden’s tropical foliage has stood in for Africa, South America, the South Pacific, and dozens of other locations across nine decades of filmmaking. The peacocks are part of the package and have appeared in more soundtracks than they have any right to.
Is the F.U. gag the film’s best joke?
Probably yes, because it earns its repetition. John Michael Higgins plays Coach Keith as a man genuinely passionate about cheerleading who cannot see why his “Fired Up” abbreviation might amuse the campers. The gag works because Higgins commits completely to the obliviousness. A less disciplined actor would have winked at the audience. Higgins does not. Coach Keith genuinely does not get the joke. The audience does. The comedy lives in the gap.
What did Roger Ebert think?
Ebert disliked the film actively. He wrote that “Fired Up!” would do for cheerleading what “Friday the 13th” did for summer camp, which is a brutal comparison. He singled out Hayley Marie Norman as the most interesting peripheral character the film failed to develop, and he found the protagonists’ relentless dialogue exhausting rather than charming. His critique is not wrong on its specifics. It is also operating from the assumption that the film is trying to be something more than a competent teen comedy. The film is not trying to be more than a competent teen comedy. As a competent teen comedy, it succeeds. As something more, it does not.
How does it fit alongside Will Gluck’s later work?
Fired Up! is the prototype. Easy A (2010), made the next year, is the polished version of the same instincts: rapid dialogue, comedy that respects its female lead, brisk pacing, competent ensemble management. Friends With Benefits (2011) extends the approach into the adult-rom-com register. Watching Fired Up! after Easy A is watching the director work out his craft. The development arc is visible and instructive.
Should I watch it?
If you enjoyed Bring It On, American Pie, or the 2000s-era teen comedy register generally, yes. If you need your protagonists to be likable from the opening frame, no. The film is a 7 because it does what it sets out to do at a higher level than its critical reception suggested. It is not trying to be a great film. It is trying to be a funny film. It is, by the law of comedic averages, funny enough. The Friday-night-with-low-expectations test is the right one. Apply it. Adjust accordingly.