White Men Can't Jump

* My favorite IMDB user reviews about White Men Can't Jump:

Woody and Wesley when dey was cool - 12 March 2005
Undeniably Hoosiers would get the win, if they ever polled film buffs and critics asking what the best movie is revolving around basketball. Hoosiers, the movie about a failing Indiana high school basketball team being led to success by their new coach played by Gene Hackman and the drunken assistant coach (Dennis Hooper) has enjoyed its fair share of the spotlight. Granted the field of movies about basketball isn't nearly as deep as say movies with plots concerning baseball or boxing, Hoosiers still generally beats out what little competition there is.

However in my opinion the best movie to ever capture the game of hoops is the criminally underrated and underseen White Men Can't Jump, by director Ron Shelton. Shelton also brought us the more popular baseball film Bull Durham and the golf flick Tin Cup. But I'd argue White Men Can't Jump is his centerpiece. The story revolves around two street court b-ball hustlers. One new in town, smooth, and white (Woody Harrelson), undoubtedly to his advantage. The other man, a black, a veteran of the LA courts, and fast-talking (Wesley Snipes). After Harrelson hustles Snipes the two form an unlikely partnership "ebony and ivory" but as always it is on edge and lacks a required amount of trust.

For a film that was released in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and the L.A. riots and just before the O.J. Simpson debacle, White Men Can't Jump is surprisingly mature, witty, light hearted and open-minded in its approach to the race issue. Ron Shelton's dialogue is amazingly rapid fire and smart. It bites and certainly has a sting to it, but it's all in good fun. The multi-flamboyant personalities on the outdoor L.A. street courts hustler each other, crack "yo-mama" jokes with one another, and try to look better than the other. This is the movie that really put Wesley Snipes on the map and showed that Woody Harrelson was far more than just another face in the "Cheers" ensemble. Both provide excellent work in not only playing the characters but also learning how to play basketball and talk like actual street hustlers. There's very few standins here. Both Snipes and Harrelson learned to play the sport as well as any actor could be expected to. Rosie Perez is good as Harrelson's annoying and overbearing Puerto Rican girlfriend. If any one word can describe White Men Can't Jump, that word is "fun." The movie tackles serious issues like hustling, family, relationships, race, life in poverty, and gambling debts. However if Robert Rossen's pool hall film The Hustler presented the dark side of the life, Ron Shelton's White Men Can't Jump shows the flip side of the coin. How hustling can be fun and games.

courtship - 22 September 2005
A gritty comedy set in some tough LA neighborhoods about two basketball hustlers, one white (Woody Harrelson), the other black (Wesley Snipes). After hustling each other, they finally team up to play in a tournament, where with a combination of skill and trash talk they defeat the two guys who normally would have left them in the dust. The trash talk gets silly at times, while the subplot of underworld characters who are chasing Harrelson for an unpaid debt seems to be there only to explain logically why he hustles in the first place, as if he would do something else with his life. In any event, the games go from Venice Beach to Watts, and the settings are as good as the stars. Especially so are the cheap motels where Harrelson and girlfriend Rosie Perez have to live, and the inner city apartment where Snipes and his wife Tyra Ferrel call home, all of which adds up to a realistic slice of life at the time, which now seems to look quite a bit different. Intelligently written and well photographed, it has laid in the back of the shelves at countless video stores waiting to be rediscovered.

not really about basketball at all - 11 August 2009
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.

It's hard being this good - 21 February 2001
Surely you will know of a sandwich shop somewhere in your neighborhood or the city you live in that, when viewed from the outside, holds little promise. There is no way to tell if they sell anything out of the ordinary, to say it is properly decorated would be an insult to the very craft of decorating, the menu is unclear and priced so low it can't be any good and on top of that, the patron doesn't look very inviting. But since it is cold and you're hungry, you go in and order that Daily Special that with a grunt from aforesaid patron is prepared for you. You sit back and take a bite. And then it happens. Wow. How can something this lame looking be this good? This review comes rather late in the day, given the fact that this movie was released already a while back, but every time it's on TV I take a bite and marvel at how bloody entertaining it is. This is no Oscar winner, no earth moving experience, but just proof that an entertaining story might just come careening around some corner you didn't expect it to come from. Don't expect a social commentary on the black 'n white boundaries and life in the ghetto or a senseless showcase of how entertaining great basketball is to look at, although Snipes and Harrelson surely deliver. Be prepared to be taken into the world of a group of characters that do need a little effort to identify with. And see how from the fairly uninviting premise of the blacktop of ghetto basketball courts, two very cocksure basketball hustlers, mating the naive and the somewhat worldwise, a girlfriend obsessed with Jeopardy and the ever so strange ethics involved in wagering bets, a frankly heartwarming story is squeezed, juggling fast-paced and often hilarious dialogue with life-turning -nasty-tricks drama, that is so utterly recognizable that at one point you wish you could hug Harrelson's character. Oh, and play ball like Snipes. There is chemistry here people, both on the funny and the dramatic side, and it's a shame they didn't manage to repeat it on The Money Train. It is brought to the screen using unpretentious, almost nonchalant directing showing a clear love for great ballplay. Don't be deterred by Snipe's recent duds and Harrelson's somewhat beyond-your-grasp acting choices. In the words of Snipe's character, don't listen, but hear. Go rent this or switch to that channel and take a bite. You won't regret it.

Now that's how you make a film - 2 July 2003
This film has got to be one of the best i've ever seen. It grabs you right from the beginning when Billy and Sidney are first introduced to each other in one of my favourite scenes of any film. It has many different elements to it all brilliantly done comedy, drama, romance and of course the best of them all - basketball. The trash-talking on the courts is great to watch and no matter how many times I see it it still makes me laugh especially when Billy is trying to psyche out his opponents at the 'brotherhood' tournament. It's just one of those films that you can watch over and over again.

I rarely give a film 10/10 but this one deserves it WATCH THIS FILM your life will be better for it.

Watched it a hundred times - 5 January 2008
Every chance I get I will watch this movie when it is broadcast. I just love it, if not for the sport, but the characters and the scenery. I feel like I am at a California Beach with them. I love the way Wesley and Woody interact with each other and could not imagine any other actor taking either of their places. I wish they would have made a WMCJ II. Their skill in playing is quite remarkable and very entertaining. Their lines that they hit off each other with immediate comebacks are very witty. The admiration that they had for each other was kept very well hidden until the director decided to let you get a glimpse of their feelings. A great movie with great actors.

Still On Point After All These Years - 11 October 2008
I recently caught White Men Can't Jump and, after the joyful nostalgia for my youth wore off, I couldn't help but feel sad that more than a decade on, all the white/black misunderstandings and tensions remain. For the film's sake, that's good, as the jokes and quick-witted dialog remain relevant, but still....

White Men finds Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes living hand-to-mouth as hustlers on the early 1990s LA street ball scene. Knowing a good con when he sees it, Snipes's Sidney Dean quickly convinces Harrelson's character to team up so they can exploit the perennial myth that white men can't play basketball. The relationship throws front-and-center each character's (mis)perceptions about the other's race, the permanent divide between men and women, and the crazy logic us dudes will often apply to justify taking a risk "just one more time."

Great on-court scenes and sharp-tongued wordplay between Snipes and Harrelson keeps the movie on track. Definitely worth the time. Too bad it never helped spawn any sort of real-life dialog on race and class in this country.