Cinema Veritas

Hoosiers

Written by Angelo Pizzo

Directed by David Anspaugh

At the USA Charles

INDIANA PROBABLY has a lot to offer. It brought us David Letterman, for instance. But if the creators of Hoosiers are to be believed, then every community in the state has nothing better to do for five months of the year than to follow its high school basketball team from quaint agrarian town to quaint agrarian town, living and dying by their every dribble.

Given the tremendous popularity over the last several years of movies about the midwest (like Country) and of movies about sports legends (the Rocky pictures), it was probably inevitable that the two should merge. But rather than giving us Shepard and Lange sparring in cornfields, we are treated to two hours of Indiana high school hoops, circa 1951.

At the center of the film is Gene Hackman, who's role here is vaguely reminiscent of his existential Popeye Doyle of The French Connection. Now, however, he seems strained as he portrays a tough basketball coach who at one time got kicked out of the sport for pasting one of his players but is now an improved man who comes to a wholesome all-American town and tries to teach them boys a thing or two about the game.

How's this for a plot: small-town school comes from nowhere, but because of hard work and heartfelt inspiration it recovers from an early season deficit to win its division, the regional semifinals, and the regional finals. (I will not spoil the ending by letting you know how it does in the State championship.) And, to top it off, the team members learn something about themselves in the process. Pass the apple pie.

Not only is the plot hackneyed, so are most of the characters, ranging from the affable old lady (that smiles benevolently throughout the whole movie like a catatonic overgrown Cabbage Patch doll) to the good natured town drunk/basketball maven, played by Dennis Hopper. While certainly a change from his role of homicidal maniac in Blue Velvet, Hopper's performance--though often rather forced--has easily the most depth of any in the movie. His controlled energy and powerful screen presence do much to stabilize the film.

Hopper probably would have been able to do even more had he been given an adequate script with which to work, one not partial to such two-sentence Stallonian profundities as, Man One: "I hope it works out this time." Man Two: "It's gotta work out this time, or that's it for good."

Furthermore, the film provides in Barbara Hershey a wonderful example of what happens when you provide a mediocre actor with a mediocre script. While she seemed perfectly comfortable as Hannah's pseudo-intellectual sister in Woody Allen's expertly crafted comedy of last year, she appears cryogenically de-animated here, in a role as lifeless as a late-season Nets game.

More than anything else, Hoosiers resembles one of those NFL Game of the Week films, with the pounding score and super-slow motion. But there, at least, you generally give a damn about the teams that are playing. Here, you really are given no motivation, beyond the need to create in your mind a reasonable explanation for the driving synthetic soundtrack and didactic, pedestrian dialogue.

For many members of the audience, this apparently was sufficient reason to scream and applaud. That's unfortunate, because until people stop accepting these superficially scripted, poorly acted, hyped-up supervideos masquerading as substantive drama, Hollywood will continue spitting them right back out at us.