Review of Hoosiers (1986) by Eric H — 30 Nov 2011

This is one of those sports movie classics that garnered tons of praise, and yet I just never had any lasting interest in it. It happened to come on the free HD Movie channel one weekend recently, so I figured, why not. My general response is mostly ambivalent.

I'm not a big Hoosiers fan, and I'm not really a hater. But I will say that the movie has not dated particularly well. Which is odd to say about a movie that's a period piece to begin with. The primary thing that makes the movie feel like a product of the 80s to me is Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar nominated score. For one thing, it's a bit heavy-handed. But secondly, it does make prominent use of synthesizers which feel very anachronistic to pretty much any time period other than the 80s. In general I've been a big Goldsmith fan, but his work here was pretty distracting to me.

The other Oscar nominated aspect of Hoosiers that managed to underwhelm me was Dennis Hopper's performance as the drunken assistant coach. I didn't dislike his performance, and I would even go so far as to say that he was very good in the part. But this performance doesn't even touch my favorite performances of his in Red Rock West, True Romance, Apocalypse Now, or even that same year in Blue Velvet.

I think my central problem with the movie is simply that it's extraordinarily formulaic and predictable. It's not a particularly bad execution of the formula, and you could do a lot worse than Gene Hackman for your leading man and Hopper in support. But the movie really follows the sports movie formula to a T. Dishonored coach comes to small town to coach the high school basketball team. Has trouble with the town's parents because of unorthodox coaching methods. Mousy, librarian-like Principal looks down her nose at the new coach but eventually falls in love with him. It's all extraordinarily familiar. Perhaps it wasn't as familiar back in 86, but I was around at that time, and I have a feeling it was.

My other problem with the film is the idea that it focuses so very little attention or energy on the players. They really have very little personality, beyond some gimmicky quirks and it's difficult to get emotionally involved with their struggle for the state championship. Maybe movies like Friday Night Lights and Remember the Titans have surpassed Hoosiers in the category of high school sports movies and maybe the form has been elevated since then. I don't know. But I know that I felt curiously uninvolved while watching Hoosiers.

I will also say that I think I have pattern of enjoyment for sports movies. Sports that I enjoy watching generally seem to spawn sports movies that I don't particularly enjoy. But the sports that I don't like to watch seem to make great sports movies for me. Never been a big baseball fan, but there's dozens of baseball movies that I love. I do enjoy watching basketball a great deal, but I can't even really name a real basketball movie that I truly love. I think part of that is due to the pace of the game. Baseball and Football have a lot of in between times where people are re-setting or waiting for someone to set the ball in play or something. And in those times is the time that filmmakers have to tell their stories. One of the things I like about watching basketball is that the ball always seems to be in play and you are always guaraneed that it will be less than 24 seconds between shots on the basket. But that kind of pace makes it difficult to squeeze any drama in there and make it part of the game. I don't think it's impossible, but it does seem a lot harder to me.

Anyway, I know that this is a movie that's very special to a lot of sports fans out there. I welcome you all to explain to me exactly what it is here that I'm missing.