SLAP SHOT (1977)
Grade: B
Director: George Roy Hill
Screenplay: Nancy Dowd
Starring: Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Strother Martin, Jennifer Warren, Brad Sullivan
The mini-genre of "sports films" usually adhere to a seemingly written in stone formula. On occasion a director manages to attempt something unique and sometimes succeeds, like in Spike Lee’s HE GOT GAME, or Ron Shelton’s BULL DURHAM. Though most sports films are content with trotting out every cliché in the book including the intense training sequences where the audio reverberates with grunts and inspirational music, the inevitable "big game" where everything counts, and that no matter how hard these movies try to drum you with the winning-isn’t-everything rhetoric, it is often presented as the only thing. SLAP SHOT seems to effortlessly avoid these common flaws. It actually is about how you play the game.
Professional hokey coach Reggie (Paul Newman) is a beaten man, both professionally and personally. He coaches a losing team (forced to humiliate themselves further by performing in fashion shows), and his love life is in disarray. The arrival of three buffoonish brothers (think Adam Sandler multiplied by two) to the team does little to tide him over ("They’re retards!" he grumbles). However, the brothers (the Hansen’s…no not those Hansens…sorry, I had to) appear to be on to something. When Reggie finally lets them play, the three pranksters glide across the pale ice, not so much going for the puck. Their strategy (if one could call it that) is to take as many players out of the game as possible. Of which they do. They play dirty, and the crowd loves it, embracing the brothers’ caveman-like antics with much applause. Thus, the secret to success is discovered. Reggie begins to instruct his team to emulate the brothers' playing style. They hurl insults as well as hokey sticks at each other like foul-mouthed gladiators. They take joy in the violence, turning hokey into a fight club on ice. (This probably isn't nearly as shocking today in the age of Jerry Springer…come to think of it, modern hockey games may be less violent than the "exaggerated" ones presented here)
Hill directs all this action in a mode of winking comic sadism. When Newman is smacked in the face, he smiles his gleeful boyish grin as if he loved the taste of his own blood. SLAP SHOT’S hokey sequences resemble slapstick farce at its most bone crunching; imagine if THE THREE STOOGES got a hold of hokey sticks. And it triumphs over THE WATERBOY, for eliciting more laughs from its acrimonious prankishness.
We're flinged from obscene locker room talk, to rancorous hokey game, to profane shouting matches. Along the way SLAP SHOT both satirizes and celebrates the sport. Whether or not the techniques Reggie uses to win are moral, is never the issue, it’s how his team uses those techniques: the night before a game Reggie sleeps with Suzanne (Melinda Dillon), the ex-girlfriend of an opposing team's player. She tells him about her occasional lapses into lesbianism as the two settle in bed together. Reggie uses this info the following day in the midst of a hokey match: "Suzanne sucks pussy!" he shouts at the ex-boyfriend, gliding by him like an elfish child. Unfair, but it gets its desired effect.
Paul Newman is utilized beautifully. I believe this could be his best performance, and possibly his most underrated because it’s so damn natural: He never appears to be acting. SLAP SHOT is Hill’s third collaboration with the actor (following THE STING and BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID), and he clearly knows Newman’s charms, as well as how to employ them. Like Tom Cruise’s role in JERRY MAGUIRE, this is the definitive Paul Newman role, one that plays to all his comic and dramatic strengths. The man’s full head of hair is a healthy glowing gray, his face still smooth, wrinkle free, and the lantern jaw still in tact. His appearance and manner suggest that of an aging frat boy, a jock way past his prime, and willing to cheat in order to re-live past glories.
While SLAP SHOT features an ensemble cast (of mostly unknowns), the focus remains almost entirely on Newman. This leaves the rest of the cast with little more to do, than play identifiable jock-stereotypes. Brad Sullivan’s character, Morris, has only one function, and that is to spout on about his horny fantasies; he’s a walking, talking erection, behaving like an older, incessantly puerile kid from PORKY’S. Michael Ontkean's (WILLIE AND PHIL) role as Ned is consistently inconsistent. He is whatever the film finds him convenient to be at any given time. At the right moment he could be a cheating husband, a loyal hokey player, or a free spirit willing to humiliate himself for the game. The rest of the team might be described as interchangeably profane and impudent. They are an appropriately impious hokey team, though never given much to do beyond that.
This would be a much greater annoyance if Paul Newman were less amusing. And the movie often mirrors his cagey affability. It never takes itself too seriously (a common problem in sports films is to over-lionize the game) and much of the humor (for better or worse) is of the scatological variety.
SLAP SHOT also occasionally mirrors Reggie’s childish hostility. After the owner of his team (a widowed single mother) tells Reggie of her plans to discontinue the team, he screams at her, "I hope your son turns into a faggot"! The woman is presented as an effete snob, and Hill knows his audience of mostly blue collar types will despise her the moment she opens her mouth to reveal a pompous affected accent. We are meant to cheer when Newman storms out barking profanity at her. And of course the worst punishment she could ever receive would be a gay son!
Note: SLAP SHOT was written by Nancy Dowd whose brother was a local hockey player. She recorded profanity-laced conversations between hokey players, for authenticity. As such, the dialogue is a never-ending array of cursing and homophobic taunts. However this occasionally helps the proceedings; its characters are presented as so politically incorrect (especially by today’s standards) I couldn’t help but laugh at their unabashed immaturity.