This was a sports movie that is often at the top of the list of the best sports movies ever made. After seeing none of it for years, I was excited to see this one. Star Paul Newman teams with director George Roy Hill for the third time (joining Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting), and the Netflix recommended rating said I would love the movie. It's a foul-mouthed, filthy, raucous, at times hilarious comedy. So what happened? By the end, I was bored to tears. What's going on?
A grizzled, long-time veteran of hockey's minor leagues, Reggie Dunlop (Newman) is a player/coach for the Charlestown Chiefs. He's on the last legs of his career, sticking with hockey mostly because he knows little else to do. The local mill is closing soon though, and Dunlop fears the team will feel the repercussions, finding out that team General Manager Joe McGrath (Strother Martin) knows the team will fold at the end of the season. With nothing to lose, Reggie starts to work his magic in trying to save the franchise. For one, he floats a rumor that an investor in Florida is interested in buying the team. Second, he turns the team's style into good, old-fashioned goon style hockey, letting the Hanson brothers wreak havoc on opponents. Fans eat up the new brutal style, filling arenas wherever the Chiefs go. Could the team somehow be saved?
I am a sucker for sports movies....any sports movie. Underdog sports story? Yeah, count me in. Then throw in a story not of the highest level of sports, but the dingy, ratty minor leagues, and you've got a winner. That's what produces the biggest laughs here, the cheap goings on in the day-to-day running of a barely successful minor league hockey franchise. There's Martin's GM McGrath selling off equipment his team needs during the season. There is the clueless radio play-by-play man (Andrew Duncan), asking ridiculous questions and generally not knowing anything about the team. There is the newspaper beat writer (M. Emmet Walsh) who eats up everything Reggie feeds him. Throw in the always cheesy 1970s sense of style, and it all works together nicely, bringing this never glamorous life to the big screen in a generally funny way.
It's the rare movie where Paul Newman gets overshadowed, but it happens here. Meet the Hanson Brothers, the thugs of the Chiefs and the fan favorites in Charlestown and the most hated players in every road team's arena. There is Jeff, Steve and Jack -- ages 18, 19, and 20 -- hockey players with no real skill, but they're goons on the ice...and they're great at it. These three brothers are hysterical. They scream like lunatics at Reggie's pre-game speeches. They drive remote control cars in their hotel rooms. Their looks (including low, shoulder-length hair and wearing their thick, bottle rim glasses) just provide the capper. The brother trio produces the movie's best laughs, especially their on-ice antics.
So the Hanson brothers steal the movie, but Newman in the lead is no slouch. It's just not his best work either although it is remembered as one of his best parts/movies. For a movie known as a foul-mouthed comedy, it spends too much time on Reggie's love life, especially with his separated wife, Francine (Jennifer Warren). The Chiefs' best player, Ned Braken (Michael Ontkean), is also annoying as hell, a player who wants to play the right way and objects to Reggie's new thuggish plan. One of the most unlikable characters I can think of. The Chiefs' roster is where the movie has some fun, including "Killer" Carlson (Jerry Houser), a player who embraces his inner goon, Yvon Barrette as the smallish goalie, Denis, the French Canadian making an attempt at speaking English, and Brad Sullivan as ladies man Morris, among several other laugh-worthy teammates.
I liked this movie for awhile. The opener is very strong, Carr "interviewing" French-speaking Denis, watch it HERE. The humor is pretty low-brow at times, the type of stuff you would hear in locker rooms of any sports team. It's funny because it is real. This is how things go, but soon after the Chiefs turn to thuggery on the ice, the movie's humor goes away and never resurfaces. There's so much spent on the forced drama angle -- Braden and his long-suffering wife (Lindsay Crouse) -- instead of the hockey and the interesting characters. I found myself bored with the last 45 minutes, fast forwarding through whole scenes. The humor gets left behind and Capt. Buzzkill arrives in the form of some dramatic moments.
Then there is the ending, one of the most bizarre finales I can think of (and not in an especially good way). It's just ridiculous, and even stupid (which is saying something considering the low-brow humor there to begin with) as the Chiefs battle for the league's championship. It borders on the surreal, and doesn't make much sense anyways, no matter how you look at it. The actual ending -- the last shot -- has a heavy dose of drama again, a message that feels out of place here. I certainly wanted to like this movie, and I did like parts of it a lot, but mostly I came away disappointed.
Slap Shot <---trailer (1977): **/****
No comments:
Post a Comment