HOOSIERS
Film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1987 Jeff Meyer
HOOSIERS is the first sports movie since THE NATURAL that I've liked, and maybe that's not surprising. After ROCKY came out, there were about fifty billion "sports underdog" films out, most of them pretty poor: track & field, gymnastics, kung fu, even bowling. But I've always found both basketball and baseball to be the two "romantic" American sports--the two sports where a group of people work together as a unit to accomplish a goal, where the disparate personalities are fused into a team. Baseball tends to be also blend in a generous touch of nostalgia; basketball, with its speed and precision, is the other. Football (to me) is just too hyped and too violent to qualify for the designation. But I digress...
This is a beautiful film to watch. David Anspaugh directs, and if I remember correctly, he has been responsible for some of the best TV of the last decade. I particularly remember an old "Lou Grant" episode that (I believe) Anspaugh was involved with, where Lou returns home to a small mid-western town for a relative's funeral. The show had atmosphere, and Anspaugh has brought it back threefold for HOOSIERS. The overcast skies, the tree-lined streets, the leaves over everything; the small high school. Anspaugh's eye for detail sets the stage perfectly for the story.
The story isn't anything new: a new basketball coach (Gene Hackman) arrives in a very small Indiana town, Hickory, in the early 50's, and begins to mold a champion high school basketball team despite a variety of obstacles, including his own rather mysterious past. A phenomenally gifted boy who is being pressured to play; a young teacher (Barbera Hershey) who resents the importance of basketball; a colorful drunkard (Dennis Hopper, in a delightful role) who Hackman wants as an assistant coach, despite the differences between Hopper and his son, who is on the team; and the inevitable Monday Morning Quarterbacks who played basketball as boys and think the coach is screwing up. Almost all of these subplots work; what they lack in originality they make up in the skill in which they are resolved. The only thing I found somewhat awkward was Hershey's rather sudden romance with Hackman, but that is a minor detail. The story keeps you interested throughout, and while the conclusion could well be anti-climatic, even this seems to fit in well with the story. Hackman's conflict between playing the game to win, and playing the game for sake of playing, seems to be the real dramatic theme of the film, and when it is resolved, you tend to worry a lot less about who wins The Big Game--it's not whether you win, but how you play.
Certainly next to Anspaugh's name on the kudos list must be Hackman. Someone once said that Gene Hackman was the only actor he'd ever seen who looks like you could invite him over for a beer, and enjoy the experience. I can't think of another actor today who has the skills AND looks enough like a basketball coach to pull this off. Hackman doesn't surprise me in doing it--he's done too much good work--but he certainly deserves credit all the same. The actors playing the basketball players also deserve credit, because not once did I think of them as anything but high school basketball players and small town kids, to boot. It is another factor that makes the illusion of Hickory almost seamless. Dennis Hopper adds just the right touch of eccentricity and humor to the film, though his scene with his character's son deserves credit; I don't think I'd argue with his Academy Award nomination for this film (though many friends have told me he really deserved something for BLUE VELVET). And finally, Jerry Goldsmith turns in another award-winning score. Horner is derivative, Rozsa hardly does anything any more, and John Williams seems to have burned out; but Jerry Goldsmith has turned out original, effective and memorable scores for the last thirty years. Here's hoping he (and we) will have thirty more years of his work.
A substantively entertaining movie--perfect for a rainy afternoon.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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