Review of Slap Shot (1977) by Mjs M — 09 Aug 2009

One of the things I find most tiring about the sports movie genre is their tendency to take their subject too seriously often leading to cheesy moralizing. That?s not a problem at all with Slap Shot, in fact it?s probably the most gleefully amoral sports film ever made.

The story follows a minor league hockey team who?s so bad that their team is about to fold. There?s a small hope that they?ll be sold to Florida if they can turn their season around. In order to start winning the team gets a novel idea: play dirty. They begin to play a violent variation of the sport, often prioritizing bloodshed over goal scoring. Consequently they begin filling the stands with screaming fans looking thrills not seen since the days of the Roman Coliseum.

A lot of sports movies would dabble in this kind of off color humor only to devolve right back into sanctimonious lessons about the importance of good sportsmanship. But not this movie, just when it looks like its going to do that it pulls the rug right out from under the audience and continues to celebrate these players for their sociopathic behavior. And that?s not the only genre convention it subverts; one assumed that Paul Newman (not the kind of guy you expect to see in a movie like this) would be the kind of veteran player who would go out of his way to uphold the values of the sport, but here he?s pretty much the first person to sell out. One expects the dorky brothers that are introduced into the movie to be plucky underdogs who drive themselves to save the team through hard work, but they really end up just being even more violent and stupid than everybody else. This is like the ?Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia? of sports movies. The crudeness isn?t only confined to the arena either. The scenes off the ice are just as off color, the dialogue here has Apatow-esque levels of profanity and political incorrectness, and this must have seemed incredibly vulgar back in 1977.

I doubt that the sporting scenes here are particularly realistic, I know next to nothing about Hockey but everything I?ve seen about it isn?t anywhere near as violent as this. The referees seem to have almost no power over the proceedings and the players are rarely punished for their obvious transgressions. Also, aren?t these people supposed to be wearing helmets? It doesn?t really matter though, because the over the top behavior kind of lends itself to a heightened, almost slapstick atmosphere. I also think there might be some more sophisticated satire below all the mayhem, its established that the town this team is in a dire situation because of a steel mill shutting down in the environment of the late seventies recession. The town?s destiny mirrors the team?s destiny at the hand of a greedy financier who chooses extra profit over the welfare of their employees. This treatment seems to fuel the blood thirsty players and crowd. I?m not going to call this a classy satire, but there?s something there to be found.