Review of White Men Can't Jump (1992) by Johnny L — 14 Nov 2013

I think it's poor judgment that this film is generally reviewed in a positive light. It has good characterization but a terrible script, but positive reviews seem to only focus on the performances and not on the gaping weaknesses in the story.

It's like saying a cake is good if it's baked by the world's best baker and then iced in mud. Yes, there is technically some good cake in front of you, but that doesn't make you want to eat it.

This film is kind of like that. On the positive side, it goes beyond being a sports movie and tells how two guys become friends. However, I would recommend it to no one, and in fact discourage someone who was thinking about watching it because so much of the plot is braindead.

The story only works because each of the four main characters do nonsensical things that don't make any sense being in the script other than "because the story needs it to move forward." Think about how Romeo and Juliet die due to miscommunication, except imagine how bad the story would be if Shakespeare didn't even intend for that miscommunication to be an element of the plot.

So much of this script is accidental and awful, and there are even themes that are completely misleading, being brought up one or two times and then leading down a rabbit trail to nowhere.