Hoosiers (***)

The Hoosiers in this movie are high school students in Hickory, IN, a place so small that its 1951 basketball team must recruit from only 64 boys. Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) is hired to coach the team (as well as teach classes), and is immediately confronted with a walkout by two players (out of seven), a lukewarm reception by the small-town folk, who are suspicious of outsiders, a star player who won’t play, and a hostile acting principal (Barbara Hershey). He endears himself to neither his players (at first) nor the local residents, who never shy away from meddling when necessary, with his insistence on things like passing and man-to-man defenses, not to mention enlisting the aid of a local drunk (Dennis Hopper, nominated for an Oscar in this role) as assistant coach.

The first half of the movie is a character study of the stubborn coach, who is also trying not to repeat mistakes he made “last time,” as well as an exploration of small-town consciousness 35 years ago. But Dale wins the battle with them only by default, and the second half of the movie is a typical Rocky-like tale that might have been made in the 1940s as The Hickory Story. (A basketball team in a small town struggles valiantly against larger teams in bigger places.) By now most of the interest for the viewer center’s around Hopper’s character, who doesn’t quite believe his boss’s contention that he can be redeemed. Hoosiers doesn’t exactly fall apart, but Director David Anspaugh seems to be going through the motions.

IMDb link

written in early 1987; posted 10/3/13