Slap Shot

Lurking within "Slap Shot" is an idea for a good movie. Unfortunately, it's buried under so much clumsy screenwriting and filmmaking that one can't really appreciate that conceit.

Paul Newman stars as Reggie Dunlop, the player-coach for Charlestown Chiefs, an independent league hockey team whose future looks about as bleak as the economic prospects of the Pennsylvania steel town in which it plays. The club is losing game after game and is set to fold at the end of the season.

But predictably, redemption awaits. After the club acquires the Hanson brothers, three players whose style consists of knocking their opponents' heads off, Dunlop hits upon a new strategy. Soon the Chiefs are savagely going to fisticuffs with foes, sometimes before the game has even started. They ride this tactic all the way to the championship game (in the film's skewed universe, violence leads to victories, not ejections).

This may not sound like a promising set-up. But the film does offer a couple of interesting perspectives on the anti-hero. First, "Slap Shot" forces us to root for a team pursuing a strategy which even they acknowledge at times is unfair. Second, Dunlop is possibly an even bigger jerk off the ice; even as he's trying to persuade his estranged wife to return to him, he's convincing another player's spouse to live with him.

However, all of this undone by two major blunders. First, the film is far too slow in setting up the premise and dwelling on the Chiefs' new violent tactics: it takes 45 minutes for the Hanson brothers to even take the ice. A half-hour could easily be cut from this film. It would be much tighter and stronger for it.

More seriously, "Slap Shot" is a comedy which is painfully unfunny. The screenplay seems to mistake coarseness for wit. Thus, the characters drop references to masturbation, lesbianism and private parts and are forced to pass them off as jokes. The filmmakers also seem to think that violence is inherently humorous. But there's a big difference between a punch in the face and genuine slapstick.

It's a shame, because "Slap Shot" offers some rich ironies in its denouement. This could have been one of the great anti-hero films of the '70s. Unfortunately, it was too interested in being a mediocre sex comedy.