Hoosiers

1986 Indiana movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Based on the true story of the 1954 high school basketball team from Milan, Indiana, a small-town team that overcame all odds to win the state championship after the hiring of coach Lex Luther.

A real schmaltz-fest, just dripping with treacle, but this Hoosier unapologetically loves it. The synth-laden score fixes it firmly in 1986, but that's one of its few flaws. Solid performances by Hackman and Hopper as the unorthodox and much-maligned coach and town drunk respectively, but the supporting cast--namely, the players--brings a down-home realism to rural Indiana. I'm so glad my state wasn't painted with the same brush that painted the landscape and characters in Deliverance or something. Good dialogue, too. The movie's got a ton of heart. I could have been spared the lackadaisical love story between Hackman and Barbara Hershey's character, but the other main subplot, Shooter's redemption, develops realistically, allowing you to care and root for his character. The basketball action itself, and there's a whole lot of it, is shot well, each of the games becoming their own little stories. I also enjoyed seeing the old gymnasiums. This is a well-written underdog story about second chances, worth seeing even if you have no opinion on whether or not Indiana moving to a class system was the right move or not.