HOOSIERS (1986)

HOOSIERS (1986)

Tagline: They needed a second chance to finish first.

(Drama, Sport, Basketball) [PG]

Sun don't shine on the same dog's a-s every day, but, mister you ain't seen a ray of light since you got here.

This one is about a small-town high school in Indiana that ends up playing for the high school basketball state championship in 1952. Can this new coach with tons of baggage in his past bring these players to greatness while battling a town that is out to make sure he never has a fair chance?

First off this movie is well done, but it’s far from the real story. Almost nothing in the movie mirrors what happened in real life. Even the town of Hickory is fictional. The real team the film is based on was the 1954 Milan High School Indians. The coach of the real team was only 26 and was actually in his second year with the team when the movie would have picked up. In the film, the coach (played by the legendary but oft difficult to get along with Gene Hackman) took over the team as a middle-aged man who had a checked past on the college level as a coach. None of that was true in real life. I could go on and on about that, but you get the idea. This movie took a real-life event and a few of the names involved and made a heart-warming flick that was similar to the real-life events in that they both involved high school basketball.

Acting-wise this thing is over the top good. I guess there was some issue between Gene Hackman (who plays coach Norman Dale) and director  David Anspaugh (who also directed MR. CHURCH and RUDY), but you can’t tell in the final product. We also get a fantastic performance out of Dennis Hopper who plays one of the player's alcoholic fathers who is given a chance to be an assistant coach for the team. This was probably an interesting role for Hopper who had actually just quit drinking in real life. Barbara Hershey who plays Dale’s love interest is also good in this, but with 45 minutes or so of the original movie cut out, the relationship between the two is mere minutes in the movie. 

The score for this movie hits all the right tones. The opening sequence is light and fluffy whereas the basketball sequences are just the right amount of drama. Cinematically it’s a beautiful time-capsules of the mid-west in the ’50s well before I was born, having said that, I wasn’t crazy about the idea to make the townspeople a bunch of jerks towards Norman Dale at first. In real life the Milan High School Indians never faced that kind of scrutiny, so they kind of overplay their hand on that one, at least in this instance. One thing they also got right about this movie was the casting. All but 1 of the members of the basketball team in the movie are from Indiana in real life. 

Tidbit - Hoosiers is the nickname of Indiana University athletic teams. Webster's dictionary defines the word Hoosier as "a native or inhabitant of Indiana". However, it is very likely that “Hoosier” was actually meant as a derogatory term at first, having the idea of an uneducated, rural yokel, a rustic. It is thought to have first been used (at least in publication) in 1826’s Chicago Tribune. 

Overall this is a very solid film and after seeing it in the theaters in 1986, I remember thinking it was well done. I watched it again today and thought the same exact thing. We don’t get accuracy, but at least we get a blast from the past worthy of the praise it got when it came out. 

For me this is a 5 out of 7, but only because nothing explodes and they went a bit overboard on the Bobby Knight similarities when the movie was supposed to be about a completely different coach. I think with the added parts that were cut out, this would have been a 6 out of 7 or 7 out of 7, so keep that in mind. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF CINEMA ’84 AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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