White Men Cant Jump
Billy Hoyle is a white basketball hustler who banks on black players underestimating his skills on the court. When he pulls one over on Sidney Deane, his victim sees a lucrative opportunity, and they become partners in the con game, plying their trade across the courts of Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Billy has to keep one step ahead of mobsters, to whom he owes money.
8 February 1956, Nachitoches, Louisiana, USA
22 May 1981, Bronx, New York, USA
15 January 1947, Columbus, Georgia, USA
23 July 1961, Midland, Texas, USA
27 November 1916, Aurora, Illinois, USA
24 July 1965, New York City, New York, USA
16 September 1921, Newark, Ohio, USA
28 September 1949, Long Beach, California, USA
13 July 1924, Newport News, Virginia, USA
15 May 1956, Los Angeles, California, USA
1973, Watts, Los Angeles, California, USA
25 November 1952, Detroit, Michigan, USA
April 02, 2014
Ron Shelton's film about two basketball hustlers hasn't aged well.April 02, 2014
They're black and white instead of fat and thin, but Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson have the makings of a classic comedy team, the Laurel and Hardy of the half-court game.April 02, 2014
It's a funny, frequently rousing film, with a warmly appealing acting partnership at its center-between basketball hustlers Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson.April 02, 2014
[White Men Can't Jump is] like a game of pick-up basketball: it's intense, raggedy and explosive, now and then yielding moments of sheer gravity-defying grace, yet just as capable of producing air balls and pratfalls.April 02, 2014
[Shelton] contributes a uniquely eccentric point of view that is simultaneously obsessed with and ambivalent about sports, athletes and competition.April 02, 2014
A fresh and exuberant romantic comedy that is as smart about playground basketball as Bull Durham was about minor league baseball.April 02, 2014
Harrelson's performance is rich, subtle, and delicately funny. And Snipes is just amazing: everything he does seems to leap off the screen.April 02, 2014
Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson give lively performances as the heroes, who relate better to basketballs than to women or the business world. The movie doesn't add up to very much, though.April 02, 2014
The verbal interplay between the characters appears to be intentionally improvised, but the scenes come off as cumbersome and off-kilter.April 02, 2014
Despite charismatic performances by Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes as nothing-but- net shooters who might be called the Schmo and the Bro, White Men Can't Jump throws up mostly bricks.April 02, 2014
Writer/director Ron Shelton is that rare beast: someone who can make movies with wit, warmth and perception about American sports.April 02, 2014
White Man Can't Jump is most effective at the beginning -- when it's bouncing along with the exuberance that Shelton brought to such other sports-minded movies as Bull Durham and The Best of Times.