White Men Can't Jump (1992)

Undescribable Perfection

Sick Product of a Sick System

A Disappointing Continuation

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson star in this sports comedy about streetball hustlers in White Men Can't Jump.Screenwriter and director Ron Shelton tells a story of two con artist who picks up basketball games.Rosie Perez co-stars.Caucasian Billy Hoyle and African-American Sidney Deane become partners in hustling street games for basketball by lulling their black players as victims with the notion that white men aren't good ballplayers.Both try to raise money for their needs.But later,Deane realizes his actions aren't morally right especially selling out on his own people.They try to renew their wrongful deeds and redeem themselves as the story progressed.The movie provides a lot to themes that deal with racial stereotypes like blacks superior talent in basketball and white being less athletic.Added to that,we also get to see Hispanics come into the picture with Rosie's character of Gloria being in an interracial relationship with a Caucasian in Billy and her ability as a Jeopardy contestant.Overall,it was just more of a sports movie as it tries to disprove misguided notions about racial stereotypes.

Recently I have been so trapped in another round of emotional lows that I can't turn to anybody for any comfort. I am always thinking that I lack talent and that the only way I can be qualified, not successful, in competitions with others is to work harder than them so that my diligence makes up for my weaknesses. I admire the talented so much.With this in mind, I rented WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP and it made me feel like a new person. Wesley and Woody are great together. The screenplay is intelligent, focused and clever. This is a truly excellent movie, and it becomes poetic at times. Overall, I can give it no less than 7 out of 10.

This is not a comedy. This is a Basketball Jones fantasy. It's gritty and full of low rent district locales in SoCal: Watts, Venice Beach, South Central L.A., maybe East L.A.. There's a lot of trash talk and mother talk, some of it funny. This is about a white dude who is black even though he is as white as Gomer Pyle. And about as smart. This is about being white in a black world. It's about being a loser as far as women are concerned. This is about being a loser period.Woody Harrelson as Billy Hoyle is the loser. Wesley Snipes as Sidney Dean is the hotshot, hotdog, street wise hoops hustler who sees some value in an undersized white guy who plays better than he looks, although he can't jump. In a sense this is a buddy movie, 1990s style. They team up and hustle two-on-two pickup basketball for cash on outdoor courts with metal nets. They're good and they usually win.This is also about their relationship with their women. Rosie Perez plays Gloria Clemente who is a bit too smart for Billy. She spends her time imbibing endless trivia in prep for being on TV's Jeopardy. Tyra Ferrell plays Sidney's wife. She's also smarter than her man but long suffering in the ghetto. Some real life hoopsters make an appearance. I spotted Marques Johnson and Nigel Miguel, both of whom played for UCLA. Ron Shelton, who wrote and directed the excellent baseball movie Bull Durham (1988) wrote and directed here. He does a good job although I do have some points to make.One, you can't hustle hoops in the manner depicted. The main problem is the officiating. There is no way to settle disputes about fouls and who touched the ball last when going out of bounds. I played pickup basketball all over the South Bay area of Los Angeles for decades and I can tell you that when the games were close every missed shot was a foul, and the only way it got settled was to "shoot for it"; that is, the guy who claimed he was fouled when he missed the shot had to "do or die" from the free throw line or (more often in the bigger games) from the top of the key. If he makes it, his team gets the ball out of bounds. If he misses, the other team gets the ball. If you're playing for some serious money, these disputes would go on forever, not to mention the fact that somebody might just lay some hard fouls on somebody and what you would end up with is the bigger, tough guys winning. In fact, if one team is about to win against a bigger, badder team they might NEVER get a shot off.A secondary problem is the white ringer deal only works once.In reality there is enough ego involvement in these pickup games that you don't need to put any money on the line. Your self-identity as a basketball player is already on the line. Additionally, most guys who play pickup basketball play it for recreation, for staying in shape, for camaraderie. And yes there are some VERY serious pickup games with some very good players all over the Los Angeles area, although the best of them are played in high school, JC or college gyms indoors. Incidentally, by the time this movie was produced (it came out in 1992) most of the games in the L.A. area were played full court, not two on two; and before that, going back to the sixties, the default half court game was three on three.Well, in a Hollywood movie a realistic depiction of a milieu usually isn't the point. The point is entertainment, and in this sense White Men Can't Jump does alright. Snipes and Harrelson, by the way, can play a little, although it's mostly the camera work and the slow-mo that makes them look good.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

A movie that on the surface appears to be about sport - basketball- has a much deeper undertone if you look closer, a movie that uses the sport as a metaphor for the distinctions between blacks and whites in America. I've always loved this movie, i first saw it many years ago when i was about 14 and felt the wit and chemistry between harrelson and snipes is top notch, now im older i see things i didn't see before. Personally i feel you can take the movie in two ways. you either see it as a buddy comedy or a movie which shows how blacks and whites view each other. the way in which snipes is presented may be a cliché - black man, ultra confident, feels that coz hes black hes better than harrelson - but is this a cliché? most of the black guys in the movie feel that harrelsons character billy is a 'chump', and are quick to put him down. even the movies title 'white men cant jump' is a thinly vieled reference to the viewpoint of black America. this is not a racist perspective, its simply how it is, sidney (snipes) even gets into a discussion with harrelson about jimmy hendrix, about his apparently white drummer and how billy cant listen to hendrix, he can only hear him. billy for his part, uses the fact that hes a white guy to his advantage when he and snipes are hustling. these class colour elements serve to make white men cant jump a far better movie than it is given credit for, and is worth a better look if you think its just another sports comedy. David Ford