Classic Movie Review: Hoosiers

*In honor of the late Dennis Hopper, this week I took a look at two of his films, one of which I'd seen but had no memory of and the other which I'd somehow never gotten round to watching. The second is reviewed in this post. I'll write on the other in the coming days.

In the annals of inspirational sports movies, the 1986 high school basketball saga Hoosiers holds a special place. It made it on two of the AFI’s lists celebration a century of motion pictures, coming in at number 13 on their list of the most inspirational films and number 4 among the top ten sports films behind Raging Bull, Rocky and Pride of the Yankees.

By today’s standards it is in some ways quite conventional yet in most others not. I’m having trouble thinking of another sports film prior to Hoosiers that centers on a Cinderella-story victory under the leadership of an inspiring coach who brings new values and practices. The Bad News Bears may be a kind of example, but that’s more comedic than inspirational. However, following Hoosiers the formula has been repeated over the years in films like Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, Mystery Alaska and Miracle.

Interestingly, Hoosiers is the one that really gets it right most of the time. The screenplay by Angelo Pizzo, based loosely on a true story, hones its focus on Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) without getting bogged down in bloated back stories and side trips. The secondary characters include Dale’s old college friend, Cletus, who hires him for the job of high school basketball coach; Myra (Barbara Hershey), a teacher at the school and caretaker of Jimmy, perhaps the best player the town has ever seen but who refuses to join the team owing to his inward isolation after the deaths of his parents; and finally Shooter (Dennis Hopper), the town drunk who also happens to be a walking encyclopedia Indiana basketball history.


Director David Anspaugh, making his feature debut and coming from a TV background, knew how to tell a story in a short space of time. And despite the 2 hour running time, there is very little story actually told in the film. I’d say a quarter to a third of the film is taken up by practice and game montages. Anspaugh proved himself capable of telling a spare story effectively paced. The game montages show the run of play, the skill of the players and the determination to win. He never employs a big “Hail Mary” play in the big game to win it all. Sure, it has its touching moment when Ollie, the shortest guy on the team who never plays, scores two crucial points from the free throw line, but for the most part it’s the hard work that leads them to victory.

If this movie were made today the running time would be increased by 15-20 minutes in order to make room for lots of exposition about these other characters. Maybe in this case the screenplay fails to provide some of the necessary background to really feel for the team as they work their way toward the State Championship. Jimmy hardly has five lines in the whole film. Today, he’d have double the screen time and would be a full supporting character. But what makes Pizzo’s screenplay work so well in spite of these omissions is that what little he does provide is sufficient to fill in the gaps. It never panders to the audience nor assumes that people won’t get it. Take the scene when Shooter comes wandering onto the court drunk in the middle of a game. Is it necessary to have seen him drinking beforehand as a newer film would most likely provide? Or when he’s later found by Dale and Shooter’s son (also a player on the team) unconscious in the woods, is there any question how he ended up that way?

The story really belongs to Coach Dale, who last coached college ball some 12 years earlier and harbors a tragic secret as to why he stopped. Myra later finds a newspaper article revealing a past riddled with an uncontrollable temper and an incident of violence against a player. Little time is spent discussing his past. It is merely there as a fact that enriches the character. In what has become a basic convention of coaches in sports films, Dale is an outsider who wants to do things his way, despite heavy criticism from the townspeople. He wants to teach the boys the fundamentals of the game and instill discipline. The people want to see shooting.

Hackman plays Dale as a man who won’t back down, always pushing through with dogged determination. In a town meeting, on the brink of being voted out of his position, he doesn’t make a big inspirational speech that changes everyone’s mind, but says calmly and simply that he makes no apologies for his actions, which to that point include being thrown out of a game, finishing one game with only 4 players on the courts (he wouldn’t allow the fifth man to play in order to teach the kid a lesson in respect and discipline) and failing to win a single one. The Hollywood deus ex machina comes in the form of Jimmy, who announces that he will join the team if Coach Dale stays, otherwise he won’t.

Hopper’s performance is among the best work of his eclectic career and earned him his sole Oscar nomination for actin. He plays Shooter as a quietly semi-functioning alcoholic. He has only the one scene, mentioned above, in which he loses control. Although we’re led to believe scenes like this are regular occurrences for Shooter. Hopper’s best moment as an actor comes when Dale approaches him about being his assistant with the caveat that he sober up. Dale tells him Shooter, “You’re embarrassing your son.” Watch Hopper’s face sink with shame and disappointment upon hearing something he’s probably been aware of for some time, but has never had anyone explicitly point it out. Instead of an angry rage, he quietly asks Dale to leave his house. Surely some of the credit for this scene must go to Anspaugh.

One of my favorite things about the film is its depiction of old-fashioned middle America 1950s values. I’m certainly too young to wax nostalgic about the good old days in the 50s when societal politeness was a virtue and parents taught their children the proper way to behave. Respect for elders was tacitly understood. Witness the scene when a father brings his sheepish looking son to practice the day after he’d rudely quit. After a bit of prodding from dad (suggesting a long discussion at home), the boy apologizes to Coach and asks to be back on the team. Can you imagine a scene like that taking place in 2010? Or would dad have words with the coach and demand his son be reinstated?

I would be remiss not to admit that as far as inspirational sports films go I was more moved by Rocky and Miracle. But it’s hard not to admire Hoosiers as a film that does a fine job of cramming a lot of material into a small film and holding my attention with good dialogue and well-directed game scenes.