sports – The Magnificent 60s

Challengers (2024) ** – Seen at the Cinema

Am getting a bit fed up with critical wishful thinking where reviewers pump up the latest effort from a “visionary” director, the movie they wish they had seen rather than the dreadful evidence of overblown miscalculation in front of their eyes. Hammy television-sized performances, fidgety faces, actors who don’t know what to do in a close-up, and a director who doesn’t know how to tell even as simplistic a tale as this without indulging in slow-mo, bizarre camera angles and sex in a storm.

Luca Guadagnino (Bones and All, 2022), in making easily the worst sports movie of all time, is an early contender for this year’s Razzies. And I’m hoping not too many people are going to fall for the marketing line that this is sizzling with sexuality when it is one of the most tepid you will ever see, beyond the kind of dialog that would have shamed Porky’s (1981).

And if you’re going to go down the Christopher Nolan flashback route, try and do it without just the title of “earlier” – if it had gotten any earlier we would have been back in the twentieth century. Any insights into tennis are restricted to the jaw-dropping revelation that there are winners and losers and not everyone’s teenage dreams can come true, and that the prom queen isn’t going to pick the sexiest lad but the one with the most financial promise.

If you’re interested, the plot goes something like this. Best pals and tennis prodigies Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) both fancy the same woman, Tashi (Zendaya), a cut above them in the prodigy stakes, and she thinks they actually fancy each other and engineers a scene where the two boys kiss each other. Having initially chosen the charismatic Patrick as her love mate, she changes her mind and opts for Art. A dozen or so years later – the chronology is less than exact – the rivals meet up again in a low-level tennis tournament, Art, supposedly a U.S. Open champ, Patrick a long-time loser who hasn’t made the grade.

None of the principals look as if they know one end of a tennis racquet from the other, but that doesn’t matter because the director is so busy with the dizzying visuals (including a tennis ball POV) he could have turned performing dogs into champs. Luckily for us, the moment there’s some kind of emotional climax (or attempt at one) the director hits us with some heavy music.

Josh O’Connor (Lee, 2023) has the saving grace of some screen charm but Zendaya (Dune: Part Two, 2024) blows her screen credibility with a gurning performance.

Awful.

Red Line 7000 (1965) **

Quentin Tarantino is probably alone in preferring this movie mishap to John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966) – or I have somehow missed a “cult” picture. There was no doubt director Howard Hawks could handle speed. Check out the action in Hatari! (1962) as jeeps battle across tougher terrain than NASCAR racing circuits. But for some reason, he thought he would get away with interspersing footage of races and spectacular crashes with shots of actors behind the wheel. Any time something exciting is about to happen we’re alerted by the commentator saying “oh oh” or “wait a minute” or “hold it.” There’s none of the feverish excitement or authenticity of Grand Prix.

Hawks hired a no-name cast in a bid a) to become a star-maker, b) to prove he did require the marquee wattage of the likes of John Wayne and c) to show he could make a movie cheaply. He failed on all three counts. He probably didn’t think he was taking any kind of gamble at all, as a man approaching 70, in trying to depict the lives of people around 50 years younger. James Caan, in his sophomore outing, comes out best, but that’s not saying much since he has very little to do except growl and look broody. Marianna Hill (El Condor, 1970) is also believable.

While the racing footage has dated in a way that Grand Prix has not, the main problem is just a jumble of characters getting lost in a jumble of stories. No sooner has one character been introduced than we are onto another. There’s none of the cohesive story-telling that marked out The Big Sleep (1946) or Rio Bravo (1959) and, frankly, none of the characters are particularly interesting. And what possessed him to stick in a song sung by a character (Holly, played by Gail Hire) who cannot sing – she talks the lyrics – with a backing group made up of waitresses, I can’t begin to guess.

The most fun to be had is spotting in bit parts people famous for other reasons. Carol Connors, for example, who co-wrote the lyrics to “Gone Fly Now” (Rocky, 1976) appears as a waitress. As does Cissy Wellman, daughter of veteran director William Wellman. Comedian Jerry Lewis has a cameo. It says much for Hawk’s star-spotting abilities that of two female leads, Laura Devon only made five pictures and Gail Hire just two.

*Henry Hathaway and Howard Hawks…Together!*

Of the main supporting males, this was the beginning and end of John Robert Crawford’s movie career while Skip Hire made a bigger splash as a producer of television series The Dukes of Hazzard. Co-written by the director, George Kirgo (Spinout, 1966) and Steve McNeil (Man’s Favorite Sport, 1964)..

However, the French had a word for it – “genius.” Despite being dismissed as a rare misstep by the bulk of critics worldwide, Cahiers du Cinema decided it was one of the year’s Top Ten pictures. So what do I know?

The Iron Claw (2023) *** – Seen at the Cinema

When I was growing up there was a beloved character in British comic The Valiant called The Steel Claw. After one accident he lost a hand and after another the replacement artificial hand, made of steel, if touched by electricity, rendered him invisible, apart from the claw which floated in the air like some avenging angel. He started out a villain but in the kind of character development that rarely occurs in this world turns into a crime-busting hero.

I mention this not because I made the mistake of assuming the characters here would be super-heroes (though spandex does play a role) but because character development is in serious lack. And, to be honest, I’m getting a bit fed up – stand up The Holdovers – of repressed male characters holding it all together for the sake of a director who wants to make a point about repressed males. At least in The Holdovers the main character broke out of his emotional prison once in a while. Here, all we have is emotional blackmail. And a director who in true artistic fashion shies away from any real dramatic incident so that it can be dealt with in very clever long shot or occur offscreen or in shock follow-up sequence (one of which did work very well, I admit).

“I used to be a brother,” laments Kevin (Zac Elfron) at the end of the picture in homage no doubt to Marlon Brando’s famous line in On the Waterfront, as he sheds a tear in retaliation at having to keep up a stiff upper lip for the rest of the movie. By this point, he’s the sole survivor of five siblings, but the way the boys are ruled by the iron father, not a sniffle is allowed when anyone else passes away.

This is another of those biopics that won’t mean a thing to anyone outside America. At one point (long before WWF) wrestling was huge in the U.K., ruling Saturday afternoon telly when everyone was waiting for the football/soccer results, but it was so obviously faked nobody took it seriously. So, one of the issues here is the fraudulent aspect of the “sport.” Sure, you got to be fit to fake it, unless you’re a world champion with a tub of lard for a gut.

There’s a scene where Kevin earnestly explains – he’s nothing but earnest throughout – to future wife Pam (Lily James) that there is some skill involved in wooing the crowd and by dint of performance (aka acting) if you win enough people over you get to be world champion. And even if you end up getting thumped by the current world champion, if you shout it loudly or eloquently enough the audience will be convinced you’re actually the winner.

So the meat, such as it is, isn’t the wrestling (although that does occupy too lengthy a time) but how the four sons (one is dead when the picture starts) are corralled by father Fritz (Holt McCallany), now a wrestling promoter, into following him into the sport. Some of the boys ain’t so keen – Kerry (Jeremy Allen Wright) is a junior world discus throwing champion (as was dad), Mike (Stanley Simons) shows musical promise (as did, bizarrely, dad) – but still buckle down to the training and discipline. Even if it’s all faked, the body still takes a hammering. Some need pills to get them through.

One by one they all die off, Mike and Kerry by suicide, David (Harris Dickinson) after ignoring initial signs of internal bleeding. Still, mostly they grin and bear it, until, being the only brother left standing, Kevin takes against his father and tries to strangle him. Meanwhile, in the background, Mom (Maura Tierney) is as stoical as the others, her only rebellion refusing to wear the same funeral dress twice.

It’s mostly turgid, though, all the sons showing signs of depression, yet there’s some kind “happy ending” because all Kevin’s kids and grandkids end up living together to make up, I guess, for the loss of the siblings. There’s also good old-fashioned family values and the sons appear to truly bond instead of knifing each other in the back and leaving home at the earliest opportunity. But Dad never appears to blame himself for his hard line and Mom is unwilling to intervene.

I feel sorry for Zac Elfron (17 Again, 2009), the movie equivalent of being in a boy band, who’s muscled up and set himself up for Oscar contention. But, just as Wicked Little Letters was plagued by over-acting this is riddled with the opposite and no amount of macho posturing can make up for not having a decent character for an audience to root for.

The shock scene, in case you’re wondering, concerns Kerry. Despondent, he climbs on his motorcycle. We see the road, we see the distant lights of oncoming vehicle, but the camera just pulls back and pulls back with exceeding artiness. You think he’s dead, but, no, there he is shuffling around on crutches – minus a foot.

Written and directed by Sean Durkin (The Nest, 2020).

Please, sir, can we go back to dramas that are full of drama.

The Boys in the Boat (2023) ***** – Seen at the Cinema

Remarkable. I never thought George Clooney (Good Night and Good Luck, 2005) had it in him. His previous offerings had all been worthy but dry. Here, he conjures up a gripping drama of underdogs pitted against the rich and powerful of the USA and then the might of Nazi Germany at the 1936 Olympics.

Rowing is generally considered an elite sport, contestants plucked from elite universities – in Britain it was always associated with the annual Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race though from 1984 the country has won at least one gold at the Olympics and Sir Steve Redgrave, who lacked an alma mater, won five on the trot.

Except for athletics and golf, most popular sports are team games – football/soccer, American football, baseball – but the media and Hollywood tends to treat them as opportunities for individual excellence, the striker scoring the winning goal, the quarterback the winning touchdown, the baseball player the winning home run. The team aspects of these sports are rarely touched upon, even though you need a specific quantity of personnel working in tandem in order to compete.

What makes rowing so unusual is that, as one of the characters comments, you don’t have eight men in an eight-man crew you have one – in other words the guys have to be so in synch that they act as one. I probably learned more about the technicalities of sport from this one picture than any other sports-related movie I’ve ever seen and yet that information is passed out in dramatic form.

In terms of the feel-good factor, this comes closest to Chariots of Fire (1981), but in some regard exceeds that because it’s not about individuals coming good or coming from behind to win a medal, but about group dynamics. And it’s quite astonishing that with the narrative covering three key races, none much different from the other, just boats on water, that director Clooney manages to rack up so much tension.

And like Oppenheimer (2023) it’s a throwback, to those old days of men with hats. Unusual, too, that, like Moneyball (2011) or Any Given Sunday (1999) as much concerned with management as playing.

So, in the middle of the Great Depression, the young men who queue up to battle for a place on the eight-man rowing squad at the University of Washington (in Seattle not the national capital) are kids desperate to feed themselves, not those born with a silver spoon in their mouths, because making the team comes with a scholarship, a bed and meals. But qualifying is a massive attack on the human physique, not to mention psyche, as the combatants need to learn to breathe different and wear out muscles in a way no human being should.

There’s not room to showcase all the athletes so the narrative weight drops on Joe Rantz (Callum Turner), the hobo, abandoned by parents when young, living in a car wreck, skimping on food. He’s got a crush on well-to-do Joyce (Hadley Robinson) who has to do most of the running to get their romance over the line. Next in line is Don (Jack Mulhern), with a Charles Bronson haircut and taciturnity, no social skills but a handy piano player, his respiratory illness threatening to torpedo the team’s chances. In any other picture the cox Chuck (Thomas Elms) would hog the limelight because he’s the one who disobeys the coach’s commands and beats verbal hell out of the team.

Al Ulbrickson (Joel Egerton) is the coach fighting for his career, taking on the shady politics and rules-rigging and a system that wants to only reward the rich. Sidekick boatbuilder George (Peter Guinness) is the kind of backroom character who is mostly silent unless he has a pithy word of wisdom. Al manages two teams, the veterans if you like, who’ve been training together for three years and the juniors, comprising the Depression kids, but it’s the driven newcomers who impress the most and against all odds are selected to represent the university.

I had always assumed there was nothing to do in Poughkeepsie except “pick your feet.” Turns out its river is the locale for the annual rowing championships and so popular it’s not just a huge gala event but there’s even some kind of railway cars packed with passengers that runs along the side of the water so the elect can keep up with the rowers.

Most reviews of this picture have been on the niggardly side but I found it not only deftly done, but very moving, a couple of heart-tugging tear-snagging moments as it pounds its way to feel-good conclusion. The women, who are relegated to bit parts, are exceptionally good, Hadley Robinson (who I had just seen in a completely different role in Anyone But You, 2023) dances across the screen while Courtney Henngeler, as the coach’s wife, has a couple of the best lines in the entire picture. But probably the absolute zinger has to go to a blink-and-you-miss-it moment featuring Jesse Owens (Jyuddah James) when asked if he was going to “show” the Germans what he could do, replies that, no, he was going to show his countrymen back home, indicating the racial prejudice he had to overcome to win selection.

Terrific turn from Joel Edgerton (Red Sparrow, 2018) who has been hovering around for donkeys without delivering a career-defining performance. Breakthrough, too, for Callum Turner (Divine, 2020) and Jack Mulhern (Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, 2023) though I have a sneaky feeling you’ll go away thinking British character actor Peter Guinness has stolen the picture. Top notch script by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant, 2015) from the bestseller by Daniel James Brown.

All the elements that appear essential to a contemporary sports picture, namely sex, drugs and violence, are missing and what a difference that makes, allowing the picture to streamline forward without getting bogged down. And critics, believing something critical is missing, are missing the point. At the opposite end of the pizzazz scale from Oppenheimer but with as interesting and adult-oriented tale to tell. And for once allows audiences the chance to let their hearts rule their head. And at just over two hours, doesn’t overstay its welcome. This ain’t made by a streamer so catch it in the cinema where it belongs.

Instant classic.

Downhill Racer (1969) ***

Robert Redford rarely took the easy option. Even his big romantic number, The Way We Were (1973), with Barbra Streisand had a serious center, Jeremiah Johnson (1972) focused on ecology and he used his star power to get studio backing for All the President’s Men (1976). Even starting out, and before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) anointed him a star, when he could, or should according to some observers, have been capitalizing on his good looks he did not shrink from playing unlikeable characters.

Idealizing heroes is endemic. Most films which portray sport stars with feet of clay generally begin with an attractive personality who presses the self-destruct button through alcohol, sex or drugs (or all three) such as Number One (1969) with Charlton Heston. The general consensus is that this approach to the sports movie was not rescinded until the brutal boxer exposed in Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980).

But it turns out Scorsese was not the first. In this ski drama Chappellet (Robert Redford) is a loner who cares for no-one but himself. Alienated from his father (Walter Stroud), his girlfriend at home little more than a sex object, the obsessed skier proves a constant source of friction for his national team manager Claire (Gene Hackman) and not above the kind of dirty tricks as typified in Slap Shot (1977). He sees nothing wrong with making no bones about the fact that he is in the game for fame.

Totally lacking in self-delusion, he’s a farm boy and few steps up from being illiterate. The world of the professional skier was hardly the obvious subject for a sports drama. There’s certainly an excitement in the action that couldn’t be captured on television, but the essential competitive element, the race against the clock, is not so riveting as the last-minute touchdown or winning home run.

Pretty much Chapellet’s only attractive feature is that he is played by Robert Redford, and the film plays upon the conceit that as handsome a man as this will at some point turn into a good guy. There’s an interesting debate – and one that would last decades – about whether Redford’s looks got in the way of the characters he portrayed. Imagine Robert Duvall in the part, for instance, and relentless determination would not be called into question.

This leaves the film with only pity as a way to provide the character any sympathy, the sense that if he turns into a loser the audience will warm more to him than if he is a champion, but that arrives outside the competitive circle, and perhaps is even more touching, when his hopes of genuine romance with top-notch blonde Carole (Camilla Sparv) are dashed.

Michael Ritchie (The Candidate, 1972), making his directing debut, opts for a documentary-style approach, so minimalist it’s almost perfunctory. This is a decent option given there’s very little going on beyond lonely hotel rooms, and an endless round of competitions and an occasional outburst from the manager. The skiing scenes, sensational at the time, are boosted by Blu Ray. Although it gained good reviews, audiences failed to respond although Redford was on a career high after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

While it was a brave choice for the actor, the script by James Salter (Three, 1969), based on the Oakley Hall bestseller, doesn’t bring enough insight, though you could argue it was intended to keep the character at arm’s length. A novel can be engaging enough just by opening up an unusual world, but a movie needs to do more. This is pre-chuckle Gene Hackman (The Gypsy Moths, 1969) and at this point you would probably have bet on him remaining a supporting player.

Redford, the thinking man’s actor, in embryo.

https://amzn.to/3MonLzM

Champions (2023) **** – Seen at the Cinema

If there’s any justice in the world this fresh take on the feel-good movie will trump fading franchise at the box office. Sure, we’ve been here before. Due to a misdemeanour or professional fall from grace, grouchy lame duck is forced to coach a bunch of lame duck misfits. Hell, The Mighty Ducks (1992) even took the same route of community service, though that regarded a lawyer.

Despite his position as a mere assistant coach in the most minor of minor basketball leagues, Marcus (Woody Harrelson) has an NBA level of arrogance. To escape an 18-month jail sentence following a DUI, he is handed an intellectually challenged gang who test more than his patience. On a personal level, he has to swap seeing a team as something that can blindly follow his instructions to a group of individuals whose lives require understanding. And go from being an inveterate Tinderite to a keeper.

Marcus as well as Harrelson has his work cut out because you’ve never come across such a bunch of scene-stealers from animal-loving Johnny (Kevin Iannucci) who has a morbid fear of water to Showtime (Bradley Evens) whose specialty is celebration despite his constant inability to hit the target due to his insistence in turning his back on the hoop when taking a shot. In between you’ve Ms Consentino (Madison Tevlin), a legend in her own lunchtime and natural born hard-ass leader, and Darius (Joshua Felder), the team’s top player whose interaction with coach is limited to “Nope” as he goes immediately on strike.

Considerable effort goes into grounding the lives of these characters, all gainfully employed, none actually lame ducks. And seeing the world from their point of view. And thankfully, the movie avoids all signs of virtue signalling, the characters so vibrant on screen they are just a joy to watch.

In plot terms, we are treated to a series of sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching episodes, while Marcus gets wise to his situation and transforms from selfish a**hole to caring person, while not losing sight of his main function which is winning. Along the way, he attracts a girlfriend Alex (Kaitlin Olson), Johnnie’s sister, a 40-something singleton, happy to put up with passable if it means regular sex and with a refreshing line in punchy dialog that would put any cocky fellow in his place.

It doesn’t end the way you’d expect, which is probably another first for this kind of picture, but it’s a very enjoyable ride. You couldn’t choose a more difficult subject than acceptance of the intellectually challenged in the community and director Bobby Farelly (Dumb and Dumber To, 2014), who would probably be the first to admit he was guilty of getting easy laughs from such characters in the past. In his first movie for nearly a decade, he sprints past every potential trap with aplomb, only stopping to indulge in a vomit scene that seems a prerequisite of his style.

A good many of the laughs are at Marcus’s expense and often a phrase used in coaching comes back to bite him. And basketball is such an easy sport to understand, you run from one end of a court to another and lob a ball into a basket so the only tactical element we have to absorb is the intricacy of one specific move, helpfully translated from arcane sporting jargon into the easily understood by a dollop of Shakespeare.

Part of the joy of the feel-good movie is that it will be borne away on the box office wind by word-of-mouth, that impossible-to-define trick where audience approval wins out over gigantic marketing spend. Alternatively, we might live in the kind of cynical society that is already immune to the heart-warming. I hope not because this is immensely enjoyable without stooping to tear-jerking.

Woody Harrelson (Triangle of Sadness, 2022) is back to his best and you can see why he was at one time an out-and-out star. And there’s the credits bonus, unless this is snazzy CGI, of Woody singing and playing the piano and doing a back flip in the pool.After decades of bit parts and television roles Kaitlin Olson comes exceptionally good in a zingy role that delivers a side order of angst. As a bonus on the acting side are roles for Cheech Marin (The War with Grandpa, 2020) and Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters: Afterlife, 2021).

Book now.

Ford vs. Ferrari / Le Mans ’66 (2019) *****

So good that immediately on finishing a screening I pressed the re-watch button. But then this proved such compulsive viewing on original release that I saw it at the cinema four times in as many weeks. High-octane pedal-to-the-metal drama that easily takes the chequered flag from such illustrious predecessors as Grand Prix (1966), Le Mans (1971) and Rush (2103).

Astonishing racing footage is matched by a gripping narrative of ambition and revenge played out at the highest level by a quartet of terrific performances. Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), humiliated by competitors in the domestic market and thwarted by his plan to take over Ferrari, decides to steal the Italian giant’s crown at Le Mans, the 24-hour race considered then the pinnacle of motor racing achievement rather than Grand Prix.

He hires Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), the only American winner of Le Mans, who now runs a sports racing construction business and in turn he recruits maverick English driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale). Putting a spanner in the works at every possibly opportunity is oily Ford top executive Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) who constantly shifts the goalposts because he’s just mean that way or to win commercial advantage. Driven as much by personality conflict as anything else, the narrative pivots on Shelby shouldering the job of placating both big business and his maniac driver while outmanoeuvring all in sight to achieve his goals.

Jargon overload should be the kiss of death but that bold decision to involve the viewer in the minor and major technicalities of motor sport – proven and unproven techniques such as applying strips of paper to a car or battering the car boot with a hammer to increase its capacity and so comply with an arcane rule – pays off big time so that the picture can actually cover in greater depth the reality of running a racing team. Winning can be a matter of millimetres, tiny alterations amounting to massive differences during a race.

And it helps the narrative thrust that Le Mans is a single race rather Grand Prix or Nascar where over a season inevitably attention and excitement will sag. Other races are easily accommodated because they are vital to the end result, either in personal or technical terms. This is the ultimate battle against the odds, not just novice Americans taking on the big boys of Italy, but the ageing driver needing to prove himself again and again and the constructor sometimes giving in, sometimes not, to big business.

It’s pretty difficult to retain audience involvement with the competitors masked up but (as Top Gun: Maverick would later prove) little works better than having your half-hidden driver (or pilot) reveal his emotions by talking to the machine, providing a commentary on the action, though Miles’s favoured expression of “giddy-up” may not qualify as a technical term.

Interestingly enough, the principals are all indifferent, not to say occasionally shady, businessmen, Henry Ford II laboring in the shadow of his father, the repair shop run by Miles shut down by the taxman, Shelby selling the same car over and over to multiple buyers. But this is a richness of character rarely seen in action films, flaws usually restricted to sexual or alcoholic peccadilloes. Nor is there any sign of the old trope of wife/lover unable to watch drivers race, and marriages/relationships buckling under that pressure. Instead Miles’ wife Mollie (Catriona Balfe) rejoices in his skills while Henry Ford II clearly has a string of lovers.

The contrast between the romance and the reality of speed is no better expressed than when Ford is taken for a spin by Shelby or between the devil-may-care and the safe than when Shelby takes control of an aeroplane.

So many internal obstacles, Beebe’s manoeuvrings for a start, remain to be overcome never mind complications on the track that it is pretty much one twist after another with one awful ironic twist left for the climax of the race.

Christian Bale (Thor: Love and Thunder, 2022) picked up most of the acting plaudits, nominated for a Golden Globe, but I thought Matt Damon, Tracy Letts and Josh Lucas ran him close. Damon (The Last Duel, 2021) delivers a restrained performance that occasionally cuts loose to reveal the carefully camouflaged daredevil. Letts (Lady Bird, 2017), better known to me as a playwright, brings the right mixture of arrogance and power. One-time matinee idol Josh Lucas (A Beautiful Mind, 2001) eases back on the shit-eating grin and is one of the most self-righteous business bad guys you could encounter.

Sterling turns also from Jon Bernthal (Those Who Wish Me Dead, 2021) as Lee Iacocca (who later wrote a book about brilliant he was, although there’s little evidence of that here); Catriona Balfe (Belfast, 2021) and Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place, 2018) as her son. Special mentions for Ray Mackinnon (News of the World, 2020) as Shelby’s number two and Remo Girone (The Right to Happiness, 2021) as Enzo Ferrari.

Distinguished career as director James Mangold has enjoyed – from Walk the Line (2005) and 3.10 to Yuma (2007) to Logan (2007) – this has to be the peak, brilliantly bringing the human side into a movie that could easily have concentrated on the machines. He drew on an equally brilliant screenplay by Jez Butterworth (Spectre, 2015), John-Henry Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow, 2014) and Jason Keller (Escape Plan, 2013).

Hustle (2022) ****

Never thought I’d be praising the acting of Adam Sandler – or lasting to the end of a Netflix movie (yep that includes The Irishman). Except that this effort which appeared to be very off-message for the sports genre suddenly veered back on course towards the finishing line I thought it had the makings of a genuine five-star movie, almost the prequel to all those Kevin Costner-type picture where the washed-up sports star/coach ends up working with a team from Nowheresville.

For a long time the movie’s tension derives from it looking as if the career of wannabe basketball star Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez) is going south before it has even begun, partly from self-inflicted issues and partly from the shenanigans of the all-powerful, and in so doing exposes the rough and dirty underbelly of basketball.

Scout Stan Sugarman (Adam Sandler) achieves his lifetime ambition of being promoted by ageing owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall) to assistant coach of the Philadelphia 76ers. But Merrick’s sudden death sends Stanley back on the road where he discovers hustler Bo playing in an ordinary outdoor court. Having incurred the enmity of Vince (Ben Foster), Rex’s son and new team boss, and with Bo being denied a contract, Stan quits and tries to get Bo accepted into the national trials (known, for the uninitiated, as the Combine Draft).

But Bo, who has a conviction for assault, blows his chance, loses his potential breakthrough spot and except for Stan’s herculean efforts would be on a fast track back to Nowheresville. Which would have been an interesting picture in itself, there being far more losers in sport than winners, and always room in some lower league for a washed-up coach.

Sure, there’s the usual unusual training regime (this is the home of Rocky after all), and plenty one-to-one scrimmaging and amazing shots, but mostly it moves at a slower pace, a character study more than anything, as Stan learns to mentor his pupil and his pupil learns to cope with mental pressures. Opportunities to widen the picture’s scope – a potential romance with Stan’s daughter Alex (Jordan Hull) or crisis in the Sugarman home – are ignored in favour of a sharper character focus.

I’m no fan of basketball, never watched a game, couldn’t name a single player unless they starred in an animated feature, and yet I was fascinated by the way the game was played, the ins-and-outs of on-field play. Having watched it, I wouldn’t say I was any more educated, couldn’t even tell you how many people were in a team or even how long as game lasted, but for sure it kept my interest.

There’s contrasting use of social media – one that triggers the young man’s downfall, another that prompts his comeback. But in the main, especially if like me you are unfamiliar with the game, you are mostly gripped by the tension, the consequences of failure for Stan far greater than failure for Bo, and the eventuality that there is no way this can work out. And in that respect it’s not like Rocky or Any Given Sunday where the steps to success are more readily pinpointed.

Like Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems, 2109) is entering potentially the “last leg” of his career. He’s lost the annoying nasal whine and the manic comedic energy and transitioned the loser persona into a more recognisable human being. Denied the need to strive for laughs, his delivery is more conversational and realistic. Juancho Hernangomez, a basketball player, making his acting debut, sensibly restrains himself. Queen Latifah (The Tiger Rising, 2022) has also stepped away from comedy although she enjoys some good riffs with Sandler. Jordan Hull (The L Word: Generation Q, 2019-2020) also makes her movie debut. Ben Foster (Hell or High Water, 2016) plays the mean boss. SNL graduate Heidi Gardner is another stepping out of her comfort zone.

There are some anomalies, most notable being that Sandler seems a few inches short of being a former basketball player. Also, you would have to imagine that a young man who came from a tough background and hustled for a living was unlikely to be deterred by a few insults coming his way and equally unlikely to throw away so much food. And also, I never knew the basketball find actually came from Spain, the location work confusing to say the least, I thought he just spoke Spanish, hardly a rare language in America. And who is this guy called “Himself” who appeared to be played by over a dozen people?

Jeremiah Zagers (We The Animals, 2018) does an excellent job or reining in Sandler and the fact that the ending turns this into a warm-hearted drama does not lessen the fact that for most of the time it felt like anything but is testament to his skill.

Available on Netflix.

King Richard (2021) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Absorbing sports biopic mixing feel-good and a no-holds-barred approach to the titular subject with a terrific performance from Will Smith. Some commentators complained the film was too long but I was so caught up in it I was surprised when it suddenly came to an end. Beyond recognizing the achievements of the Williams sisters, I had no foreknowledge of the Williams story. The movie follows their early years until the professional debut of Venus (Saniyya Sidney).

Although following a traditional triumph-over-adversity narrative, this is as concerned about the intricate workings of U.S. tennis where the odds were so stacked against black players, saving Arthur Ashe, that club members were taken aback to register the boldness with which Williams Snr, entered their arena. For most of the picture what we see is struggle, Richard Williams (Will Smith) trying to interest coaches in his two daughters. The tennis system is laid bare, the need for funding and then big bucks sponsorship the ultimate goal, the Jennifer Cipriani case quoted as the downside of a system where parents push their children to the limit, setting aside any interest in a normal childhood in a bid to break into the professional game.

Williams is both inspiration and a complete pain in the neck. He comes across as warm and awful at the same time, a whole set of rigid rules getting in the way of the happy family he seeks to establish. His arrogance takes some beating. Having devised a business plan to turn his kids into superstars he finds it difficult to change his tune even when his methods result in zero success. He wants to correct the coaches, on occasion cheat them, but is so determined that Venus and Serena will not become tennis brats that he holds back their leap up the junior tennis circuit in case it prevents their development as people, impacts on their education and denies them a childhood.

The tennis matches are well handled. My ignorance about the Venus sisters’ career path meant that I found the actual tennis riveting. And the fury of children beaten by the upstart Venus tells you all you need to know about the pressures facing prodigies.

Zach Baylin’s debut screenplay is terrific, finding time to fill us in on Williams’ checkered past, professional and romantic failure. Prejudice isn’t limited to white people, he is beaten up by local hoods while a neighbour calls in social services. Charting the family dynamics allows wife Oracene (Aunjanue Ellis) an occasional turn in the dramatic spotlight. The relationship between Venus and Serena (Demi Singleton) is well nuanced as they move from giggling kids to more mature teenagers, loyalty to each other tested when Venus receives preferential treatment, each with their individual battles, until in specific ways they take charge of aspects of their careers.

Will Smith (Bad Boys for Life, 2020) is a sure thing for an Oscar nomination, but the supporting cast is exceptionally strong. Aunjanue Ellis takes a giant step up from television (Lovecraft Country, 2020) and as the sisters Saniyya Sidney (Fences, 2016) and in her rmovie Demi Singleton – just 15 and 14, respectively – are both delightful and convincing. Jon Bernthal (Those Who Wish Me Dead, 2020) and Tony Goldwyn (The Mechanic, 2011) play real-life coaches, the former frustrated to the point of torture by Williams’ antics.

Reinaldo Marcus Green (Joe Bell, 2020) delivers on several counts: drawing sterling performances from the actors, allowing the screenplay to breathe so the picture doesn’t feel cramped or rush, and setting genuinely exciting tennis matches.

This is already a certified box office flop, in part because of Warner Brothers’ hybrid release, in part I guess don Richard Williams polarising public attitudes, and that’s a shame because it is thoroughly enjoyable and despite misgiving about Williams as a person it is a truly astonishing achievement that against all odds a security guard and his nurse wife should have achieved such success.