Slap Shot

I love how they got Paul Newman for this part, and how great he looks out on the ice. The film parodies the violence in hockey, and it had some potentially interesting bits in the class aspects of a blue collar town facing a plant closing, as well as a mostly faceless owner who disdains the sport and simply looks forward to a tax write-off, but unfortunately these don't come to much. Worse is the cringe-inducing homophobia. The best part of the film are the hilarious Hanson brothers, and the film could have used a lot more of them.

The Charlestown Chiefs is a hopeless losing hockey team in fifth place. The team has to do ridiculous events to make extra cash. Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) is a player/coach with a rag tag team with the latest being the goonish Hanson brothers. Their best player Ned Braden (Michael Ontkean) has a jealous wife (Lindsay Crouse) who hates the small town. With the town's mill closing, the team has to close at the end of the season. Reggie Dunlop decides to pump up the team and attendance by planting a story of the team moving to Florida and starts playing goon hockey.

This is an inappropriate movie and it's all the more funnier because of it. It is possibly the funniest hockey movie of all times. Director George Roy Hill rejoins Paul Newman after the success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. It is more fun and more hilarious than either one. However you have to prepare for the language, the homophobia, and the goon hockey. It's certainly not a pretty movie.

One of the knocks that has always been given to Paul Newman was that he was not right for comedy. When you're talking about stuff like A New Kind of Love or Rally Round the Flag Boys that's probably true. But Slapshot shows that what Paul Newman needed to be good for comedy was something not quite so sophisticated.

Slapshot ain't Oscar Wilde, but it's not quite to the level of the Police Academy movies. It's just right for Paul Newman as the veteran player/coach with a team of misfits from one of hockey's minor leagues who's forever looking for a break from the majors.

The Charlestown Chiefs who seem to be the hockey equivalent of the New York Mets are having a perennial losing season. The town itself is one flush away from despondency with a mill that was the main employer in the town shutting down. That means the paltry attendance the Chiefs already have will diminish more. It's an uncertain future.

So with nothing to lose, Newman's boys turn the sport into a hockey facsimile of the World Wrestling Federation. In no other sport are fights among the players so accepted. But Newman ratchets it up to an exponential level.

And his team actually starts to win and the Charlestown Chiefs become a gate attraction.

There's a lot more to the resolution of the team's problems, but that championship game is unforgettable.

All Hail the Brothers Hanson.

I liked this movie when I first saw it over twenty years ago, and its still great! The swinging 70's get perfectly captured, by the music, hair styles and especially the awful clothes. All the actors do their own skating, so you aren't distracted looking for body doubles the entire movie. The screenplay is priceless and if anyone thinks its sexist - a woman wrote this movie! This is the only hockey movie worth anything - hopefully "Mystery, Alaska" can join it.

This one belongs on the list of the greatest sports comedies ever made. The humor (and the language) is some of the saltiest you'll hear in a movie but it doesn't seem excessive at all. This tale of a minor-league hockey team having one last go at greatness is boisterous and bruisingly funny, even if you don't care for the sport itself. As the aging captain of the team who's constantly amazed at the crazy happenings around him , Newman is at his roguish, charming best. Rent it with "The Longest Yard" for a perfect double-bill. A four-star **** classic.