When it comes to the game of paintball, there's no player greater than Bobby Dukes. You might not have heard of him, possibly because he's a fictional character portrayed in the fake documentary Blackballed by Daily Show  correspondent Rob Corddry. A living legend of the sport, Bobby nevertheless went into hiding after committing the cardinal sin of wiping off paint during a crucial game. Ten years later, though, Bobby has re-emerged into society, determined to assemble a new squad and get back into the paintball world. The trouble is that no one wants to be associated with Bobby or his scandalous past, so the crew he ends up putting together is a ragtag troupe that includes a geeky referee (Paul Scheer) and a borderline-psychotic paintballer (Rob Riggle). Will Bobby reclaim his glory and lead his motley team to victory -- or will that dark day of ten years ago replay itself?

Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story has all the makings of a great tour-de-force, an independent lampooning of sports in the Dodgeball vein. The cast is a collection of familiar faces from TV shows the likes of Best Week Ever, The Daily Show, and Saturday Night Live, and the mockumentary format gives the film an atmosphere reminiscent of a Christopher Guest comedy. The stage is all set for Blackballed to be a slice of improvisational gold, but unfortunately, it's all an act that never really gets around to pulling itself together. The film comes packed with awkward silences and dry, wry dialogue that's become signatory of the Guest movies and shows like The Office, but only sporadically does it display the same sort of wit or hilarity. The filmmakers have found the right approach to telling the story, using a fake documentary crew to chronicle Bobby's re-entry into paintball and humorously capturing the paintball sequences themselves in guerilla, Saving Private Ryan-style battle cinematography.

But when it comes down to the basics, Blackballed just isn't that funny. There are a few gut-busting moments, from the opening scene (a re-enactment of Bobby's scandalous paintball game with He-Man toys) to Riggle's character demanding that his teammates do jumping jacks the exact way he wants, but most of the material is too dry, too subtle to translate well on film, an overabundance of whisper-quiet dialogue and pauses that weigh down the flick's humor quotient as a whole. It also doesn't help that the story is almost too thin, setting up a number of subplots and conflicts that never really play out or come to fruition (the whole angle of Bobby's former best friend shacking up with his ex-girlfriend and becoming his main rival could have been abandoned entirely), so the movie simply exists as opposed to taking the audience anywhere in terms of plot.

All of the people involved with Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story are hilarious individuals, each a part of the few programs I actually bother to catch on TV anymore. This fact makes it all the more unfortunate that despite all the talent involved, Blackballed misses its target more than it scores serious laughs.

MY RATING: ** (out of ****)

(Released by Shout! Factory; not rated by MPAA.)