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Trust Weighted
Great
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83Trust Points
Wick's Review
Summary - Great 4.0
Ron Shelton made White Men Can’t Jump after Bull Durham and before Tin Cup. His sequence of great sports movies is thus baseball, basketball, golf. This middle one – his hoops hit – nailed the J with its title, even if the rest veers from perfection.
White Men Can’t Jump was welcomed into the HoopFlick Hall of Fame nonetheless. Crossing over to the mainstream, partly due to major moviestar charisma, it had sociological cred on top of it all. Swoosh. The latter came from taking on how Blacks saw Whites, albeit through the narrow prism of basketball, which was just then becoming a mainstream cultural phenomenon due to the ascendence of Air Jordan.
IOW, what we’ve got here is a white filmmaker who done Spike Lee. Done him great, I say.
SWOOSH. Game!
Acting - Great 4.0
Wesley Snipes & Tyra Ferrell, Woody Harrelson & Rosie Perez are the couples in question. The guys are top-level street hoopsters, which makes for a hot foursome, Rosie Perez’s chiquita the hottest of the bunch.
But it’s Woody and Wesley’s movie, proving to be a major career boost for each. Both are really great, with their screen wives a tick behind.
The sound track features the late Lakers’ announcer Chick Hearn on the call. Even though just a snippet, it’s enough to get hoops fans like me pumped.
Male Stars - Really Great 4.5
Female Stars - Great 4.0
Female Costars - Very Good 3.5
Male Costars - Very Good 3.5
Film - Great 4.0
Shelton does basketball – street ball, L.A. style, with Jordan & Johnson jerseys worn by trash talking hustlers. The vibe is exuberantly over-the-top, amped up, starting with the title. Likewise, it’s a very talky film, perhaps too talky, but that’s Shelton. The guy can write, especially about provocations leading to over-reactions.
It’s also a classic awkward buddy movie, a form that is terrifically effective when well executed, kind of the pick-and-roll of cinema.
Finally, the closing credits include “Thanks to L.A. Parks and recreations, and to Venice Beach, Watts and South Central”. Thus it’s no suprise that the film feels of its place.
Direction - Really Great 4.5
Dialogue - Good 3.0
Behold a white man writing black man lines and female lines. Ron Shelton gets outside himself more and better than most writers, writing away from self being pretty much the opposite of what every writing teacher recommends.Music - Perfect 5.0
Woody's character plays _He Stopped Loving Her Today_ to piss-off Wesley's character. As it happens, that song is a signature of the late great George Jones, who died the day I viewed this. The movie features Hendrix early on, a common touch point for the White and Black ballplayers, and then climaxes to a Hendrix-like guitar jam.Visuals - Great 4.0
First rate hoops action, street style. 14 Ballplayers saw to that. The movie increasingly looks like a period piece from the near past, back when cassettes got popped into car stereos.Edge - Sordid 2.6
More profane than erotic, White Men Can’t Jump is plenty of both.
Sex Erotic 2.8
Violence Fierce 1.7
Rudeness Profane 3.3
Reality - Glib 1.2
Remarkably real for a movie so over-the-top.
That said, it turns out white men can jump, as many a pale player has proven in the two decades since White Men Can’t Jump opened in theaters. While the average black baller still skies higher than the average white one, it’s no longer unusual to see sub-7 foot white guys jam with ease.
Circumstantial - Glib 1.7
Biological - Natural 1.0
Physical - Natural 1.0
3 Comments
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BrettHarrison May 4, 2013 9:29PM
Regarding Wick’s Review
Love this movie and very interesting cause if you’re paying attention, Shelton has a lot to say about race relations in this country. -
Wick May 4, 2013 2:20PM
Regarding Wick’s Review
Good time of the year to do so, what with the NBA playoffs in full swing. -
BrianSez May 4, 2013 9:59AM
Regarding Wick’s Review
I have to get around to seeing this one. It’s been on my to-see list forever!