Captures the Basketball Climate of Indiana in an Excellent Manner

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2017)

"Norman Dale" (Gene Hackman) was a college basketball coach for 10 years until an incident force him to leave and subsequently join the Navy. Now, 12 years later, he has returned to the profession he loves by accepting a coaching position for a high school in Indiana. However, the people in this small town take basketball extremely serious and they aren't nearly as enthusiastic to his new methods as he would like. To make matters even worse he only has 6 players on the team with one key holdout named "Jimmy Chitwood" (Maris Valainis) deciding not to play the entire season. That being said, when the team gets off to a rocky start everyone in town begins to call for his scalp. But he remains determined in spite of everything that has gone wrong. The question is whether he can turn things around before he gets fired. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that having spent a little time in Indiana this film did an excellent job of capturing the basketball climate as well as presenting the small town atmosphere there during that particular time also. Truly excellent. Additionally, along with the aforementioned Gene Hackman, I also liked the performances of Barbara Hershey (as "Myra Fleener") and Dennis Hopper ("Shooter") as well. In any case, this is one of those few movies that I can watch over and over again and I have rated it accordingly. Definitely above average.