1986 - HOOSIERS, very entertaining sports film

 Let the Gene Hackman memorial film tribute begin.  After watching The French Connection and Get Shorty we moved on to Hoosiers, a very good sports drama.  Gene Hackman is the coach of a small town basketball team.  He has to put up with the know it all townspeople and pull together a very small team of high school players.  Even with all of this going on he makes time to have a romance with school principal Barbra Hershey and rehabilitate Dennis Hooper the alcoholic father of one or his best players.

This is probably one of Hackman's most likable films and it's definitely one of those Frank Capra triumph of the little guy feel good films.  The film was shot in Indiana and is based on an actual championship game although in this case it's an all white team of high school kids in real life their were black basketball players in Indiana basketball although you would hardly know it.

Hoosiers may be a feel good film but apparently it wasn't a real feel good film for first time director David Anspaugh to shoot.  Anspaugh had to deal with a very ornery Gene Hackman who felt this film would be a career killer for him.  His romantic lead Barbara Hershey was also unhappy as she saw her part reduced during the making of the film.  Anspaugh and his production team were also working on a very tight budget.  Composer Jerry Goldsmith put together what you would call a rousing score and careful attention was paid to 1950's period detail in spite of all the challenges.

 

Hoosiers succeeds thanks to Gene Hackman's excellent performance. He may have been a grumpy guy on set but he was a complete professional when it came to performing.  The director and the writer Angelo Pizzo were also smart enough to focus on the characters in the film.  There are plenty of basketball game scenes to watch but they never lost track of the story or the people.

The film runs 115 minutes.