Captures Its Time Period

Rating: 8/10 (27 February 2006)

I like good sports movies. There is a delicate touch involved in making them work. As a child, my friends and I would read every sports book we could get our hands on and we were very critical of the authors. I remember a basketball book where a team that was fouled declined the foul and kept the ball. This was the end of that author as far as we were concerned. We were pretty picky. I started watching basketball in fourth grade which would have been about three years after the time of this movie. When I looked at the portrayal of the players in the movie I was impressed. The old gym, the cars heading to the visitors' town on a Friday night, the whole town completely involved, mainly because there was nothing else to do. Then, of course, it was Indiana. I couldn't begin to understand that since we never got that serious.
I will go to a Gene Hackman film and assume it will be above average. I really like his portrayal of the coach. He has incredible baggage as he hits the small town and is past the time when he needs to just please people. He is complex and proud and knows deep down inside that this team isn't going anywhere unless there is a commitment. The townspeople want a lot of scoring. He wants discipline. This of course causes him to get into a war with the townies. He even throws one of the better players off the team. Of course, there's the subplot of getting the young phenom to come back to the team and the romance angle. But ultimately it is the way basketball was in the fifties. Hackman takes his character, which has many failings, and throws it into the soup. He's a master craftsman as an actor. See this.