I saw that they remade this and I was curious to watch but didn’t want my first impression to be the new one so I decided tonight to watch this one. I don’t really know what I was expecting, I like movies about basketball and I like movies about unlikely friendships (which is a really fun genre that includes Ratatouille and First Wives Club) but it’s older and sometimes those movies do not age well. Also Wesley Snipes is abusive. We’re separating the art from the artist for tonight but hold him accountable! No one talks about it and it’s pretty bad. But I did watch it and I’m glad I did. I really liked it.
This movie is about two guys, Billy (Woody Harrelson) and Sidney (Wesley Snipes) who are both really good at basketball in LA. Billy is a down on his luck, bad with money hustler who gets 60 dollars here and there for games that he brings back to Gloria (Rosie Perez) his girlfriend who is studying to be on Jeopardy. They together also owe 7,000 to some shady brothers who have been following them threatening to kill them unless they pay.
Billy hustles Sidney and wins, who gets the idea that they can make more together, or so we think. They do a couple of games and it’s going great until one game in Harlem for 1700 that Sidney just can’t seem to get it together for. They lose all the money and Woody Harrelson comes home crestfallen and explains to Gloria what happened. She then explains to him that he was scammed, and they get on a bus to Sidney’s house.
Once there, the winners of the earlier game are chilling watching basketball and they really get into it but Gloria and Sidney’s wife Rhonda (Tyra Ferrell) figure out a solution. They’re going to enter in a two on two tournament and win and split the 5,000 prize.
Something I liked about this movie is that there wasn’t a “big game” or normal climax how you would narratively expect. This was huge and they win but then Billy loses his half to Sidney betting that he can dunk in three tries, which he does not. This prompts Sidney to tell him the title of the movie and remind him, “White men can’t jump.” There has been a constant back and forth where Billy insists that white men would rather look bad and win but black men would rather look good and lose, and this is a philosophical point of tension for them throughout the movie.
It seems like they keep trading luck and losses back and forth, one will win and be on top, but then have a huge setback, then the other will come into a windfall, then be down on his luck again. I really liked that constant shift it drew your attention back to the context both of these men were in outside of the court which is all they seemed to care about and everything else was just noise, but often that noise reached an exigent decibel.
By the end they have traded favors back and forth many times and Gloria has left and come back to Billy. He got her on Jeopardy and she won a lot of money and she gave him 2,000 of it to buy nice clothes to get a job. But Sidney’s house was robbed and he comes to Billy asking for help to play and enter a tournament with a 2500 buy in. Rosie is upset and tells him that if he gambles with her money this is it, she’s leaving. He does it and they win but true to her word, she leaves him.
He and Sidney are talking after and Sidney says, “Maybe the two of you are just better off without each other” and other stuff. Then Billy asks him to help him find a job and Sidney asks if he has any references and Billy says, “You.” The movie ends with them on the court passing the ball in the sunset.
I really liked how much they didn’t like or trust each other for most of the movie. Their friendship was so begrudging and that felt really real.
I did not like Rosie Perez, I think I was tainted by her character in It Could Happen to You, she’s so money-grubbing, and in this the first scene of hers she’s holding a jar of money and asks how much Billy brought her. Then there’s more to her but I think the damage was done. They clearly loved each other but I kind of agree that they weren’t good together and they both did better when they were apart.
Something I was pleasantly surprised by- there was a lot of trash talking in the movie, in the games and tournaments especially people really went in, a lot of your mama jokes and digs and this movie came out in 1992, I was worried some of it would be dated and maybe homophobic or sexist or something but it was all these really specific cultural references, which was so sweet. Like someone yelling, “This Gomer Pyle motherfucker” etc. Who by the way, I looked up and that’s so funny as an insult. He’s just goofy enough for it to be brutal.
The way a lot of the hustles would go was Sidney would be playing and losing a game, and then he would offer a new game for more money where they could pick his partner, ANYONE they want. Cue Woody Harrelson, and the logic of the movie seemed to be that he was SO goofy looking they couldn’t help but pick him every time. The idea that someone looks SO humorously out of place, just by existing is funny to me. Imagine just sitting outside in shorts from Old Navy and someone being like, “OH THIS motherfucker can’t be serious.”
Also I’m not sure of the fashion at the time but to me it looks like they dressed really similar. They’re both in bright patterns sometimes and t-shirts and hats. I liked how they dressed. I also loved that Woody Harrelson is a sex symbol in this (I’m assuming) but he’s balding. I feel like we lost a lot when we decided love interests in movies have to be hot in a perfect way. I like actors more who are hot in an imperfect way. They’re still hot but it makes me feel like I could know them vs. feeling like they’re trying to sell me yogurt. Hard to explain but I stand by it.
It’s such a good movie. I think something I really like in movies too is when there’s an assumption about ability based on looks that someone else gets to exploit for money. It just feels sooo satisfying. I think I’ve mostly seen it with women, I can’t think of anything specific right now but I watch a lot of movies where someone assumes girls can’t fight or fix cars or something then they prove them wrong and get money in the process. In the first X-Men when Wolverine was entering and winning cage fights, is another example. It just feels so good to watch.
The dad from Smart Guy (John Marshall Jones) is in this movie, he’s the player who gets an injury that Billy replaces the first time he and Sidney meet. That was fun to see him young, I’ve only ever seen him with a tiny belly and a belt lecturing but here he was getting a head massage on some bleachers from a woman in a beautiful two piece workout set.
The clothes were really something in this. It was so fun to see the fashion. A a lot of men in tight, short clothing that it seems like we’ve allowed Evangelicals to dictate is gay or feminine for men to wear, which is a big loss. Men should be able to wear whatever they want that makes them feel good and have fun with their clothes. And they looked good!
Now I’m curious to watch the new one, see what the fashion is and see how they handle the main relationship. If they make it too feel good/heartfelt I think that’s a huge misunderstanding of what’s good about the original, Billy is betrayed by Sidney, a few times, and that’s foundational for their partnership.
We learn later in the movie that the reason they owe the Stucci brothers so much money is that Rosie originally buys a car for 3,000 but it turns out to be a piece of shit and she refuses to pay. They offer to let Billy throw a basketball game for them that they put a lot of money on but during the game one of the opposite team members says he’s a honky who can’t shoot. Sidney says, “You are a honky!” and Billy goes, “But I can shoot.” So he won the game but lost the bet and then owed them 7,000.
Billy also talks a lot about the ethics of hustling and when it’s okay to cheat vs. not. Shaking someone’s hand and agreeing to something you go back on later does not make the cut but exploiting someone’s own assumptions of you is fine. I thought something the movie did a really good job of was slowly showing the values the two men each had then letting them clash until they aligned.
I liked that the movie didn’t have the problem, goal, solution, setback, comeback, celebration formula that a lot of movies (especially sports movies) often have. Like, oh we need 2,000 to go to nationals, hey- there’s a local competition with a 2,000 dollar prize, etc. This had so many paydays and losses it was hard to keep track. It seemed more about who to believe and when, and how to know who to trust and why. Actually I don’t really know what it was about but I’m confident it wasn’t just about basketball.
Written and directed by Ron Shelton who also wrote Bull Durham and Bad Boys II, I liked all of the dialogue and pacing. I usually have more to say but I don’t think I know how to verbalize what I felt watching this movie, I just liked it and was glad it was good. Now I’m curious to watch the new one and see what they did and if it was good too. I’m also learning that Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson did four movies together (This, Wildcats, Money Train and Play it to the Bone). That’s more than Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore!
Harrelson dunks in the end and that felt really satisfying. I’m learning that this was one of Stanley Kubrick’s favorite movies and I love that.
5/5 low cut tanks tops, would masturbate again. Also the trash talk was so good, an art form we don’t appreciate enough.
I Heard The Book Was Better 