Good but not involving enough

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2004)

"Hoosiers" is one of the great sports movies of all time...but that's not saying much. Out of all of the sports films I've seen, there are three I can recommend: this one, 2001's 'Remember the Titans' and 2004's 'Miracle'. The best part of the latter two was that they succeeded in a balancing act of getting to know the coaches intimately as well as the players (though a good majority of the players in 'Remember the Titans' were caricatures). 'Hoosiers' biggest problem is that we only get to know the coaches, and all the players are just vaguely different variations of the same person.
This makes the film's basketball scenes quite boring to watch because of how little we care for the players. It seems that the writer was writing so much about the coaches that he forgot about the players and tried to make up for it by adding little traits in a vain attempt to make them more interesting. One is a Jesus freak. One is inconveniently short. I couldn't tell you anything about the rest.
Except, there is one interesting player in this movie. And no, it's not the 'main' player, Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis). No, we don't even get to know him. Instead, it's the character of Everett Flatch (David Neidorf), who plays the son of the Dennis Hopper character, a moronic drunk. We see the pain in his eyes when his father is drunk, and the disappointment when he's not able to coach right for a big game. We see how this affects him during the game, but what's more, we care.
Once you look past the shallowness of the players' characters and the blandness of the basketball scenes, 'Hoosiers' is actually pretty good. Gene Hackman's performance as the tough new coach to the small town basketball team is the film's best aspect, though I personally would've liked it if he was a little meaner. Barbara Hershey is fine as the female lead and sort-of love interest to Hackman's character but her character isn't interesting enough for us to care whether Hackman ends up with her, or if he doesn't, or if she dies in a tragic bowling accident (really).
Dennis Hopper was nominated for his only acting Oscar for this movieand, well, at least we can say he only has one undeserved acting nomination. He overacts to a glorious point as the drunk, climbing the ladder of parody and then jumping off to the next side near the end. He is a caricature; everything from the way he slurs to the way he moves is like a cartoon drawing of a drunk. And I like Hopper too, but this is not one of his high points.
Watch the film for Hackman's performance, and for a few interesting and tense scenes, but for nothing else, 7/10.