La castagne

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.

To be completely honest, "Slap Shot" would've charmed me simply for being a hockey movie. We could do with more of those, without Emilio Estevez. But it earns its place among the better (best?) sports movies not for having underdog skill, a committed dream or thirst for winning, but for dabbling in the gutters of blue humor and distilling the sport down to its most low-brow of beer-guzzling violent fun. The closest thing I can think of to compare this to is "Major League", which is a compliment unto itself.

Even if you don't like the sport, the movie is absolutely worth your time for an unusually profane (and always likable) Paul Newman and for the psychotic Hanson brothers.

Thoroughly entertaining.

8/10

Mostly hated by critics on its release, as much for its cynical viewpoint as its relentless profanity, "Slap Shot" has since become something of a cult classic.

Set in the low-rent world of minor-league hockey, the movie follows the efforts of player-coach Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) to turn around the Charlestown Chiefs' final, losing season in a dying Pennsylvania steel town. Reggie is not above using a dirty trick or two to manipulate his teammates or psych out opposing players, and cheerfully gets physical when he has to. Even Reggie recoils in disgust, however, when his tightwad manager (Strother Martin) brings in the Hanson Brothers, three thick-lensed, thicker-headed goons who are more interested in fighting than playing Reggie's brand of "old-time hockey".

When it becomes apparent that the hometown crowd loves the Hanson's rough and bloody style, Reggie decides to go with the flow, and to fire up his other players concocts the story that, if they can win the championship, the owner will be able to sell the franchise to a group of rich retirees in Florida. To do that, though, they will have to get past an opposing squad specially stocked with the league's most notorious goons...

A sometimes uneasy blend of slapstick and kitchen-sink realism , "Slap Shot" has some pertinent things to say about the American worship of success at all costs, and (long before the rise of the WWF) our fascination with violent sports. Echos of its gritty style can be seen not only in many later sporting films, such as "Bull Durham" and "Major League", but even in the wave of British movies in which characters fight to hold onto their lives after the collapse of hometown industry, such as "The Full Monty" and "Brassed Off".

The film really shines as a straight comedy, though, delivering some classic characters and set pieces: virtually every appearance of the Hansons; a clueless, toupee-wearing sportscaster (Andrew Duncan); the team's tiny Quebecker goalie (Yvon Barrette), and Newman himself, in one of his personal favorite roles. The females fare less well, although Jennifer Warren stands out as Dunlop's long-suffering, estranged wife.

Note: in the VHS version, the background music has been replaced by an inferior, generic soundtrack. The DVD version, with the original music, is preferable.

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.

Paul Newman is the coach of third rate failing minor league hockey team, The Charlestown Chiefs. The town is hit hard by unemployment and this appears to be the Chiefs' last season, however, if the coach can whip up the team up into a winning frenzy, then the unknown owner might just find a buyer and save all their carers? The management bring in three odd looking brothers who, once unleashed, take the whole team on a blood thirsty winning streak right to the championship final. The crowds flock in thirsting for more blood, but then the problems start to arise.

Slap Shot is a tremendously funny film, it's also incredibly violent and often vulgar in dialogue, but be sure to know that both things go hand in hand here (or should it be glove in glove?) to create one of the smartest sports pictures in the modern age. The hockey sequences are excellent (especially to a non fan like me), and the script bristles with course and biting humour. Slap Shot on its initial release was frowned upon by many critics, it was considered too profane and overly harsh with the win at all costs theme driving it forward. However, it's now rightly embraced as the smart and intelligent piece that director George Roy Hill wanted it to be seen as. A new generation of movie fans have started to seek it out and its reputation and fan base grows ever more larger by the year.

Newman was a bona fide star, his hair silver grey but his good looks still firmly intact, his performance has a grace about it that oddly sits nicely amongst this cynical stab at professional hockey; even if his characters' clothes are, in truth, icky. It would be a big disservice if I didn't mention the impact of the Hanson Brothers, surely one of the finest combinations to have ever graced a sports movie? They are at once unassumingly likable, the next gleefully violent, they are the glue that binds the whole picture together. Film is filled out with sparkling support work from the likes of Strother Martin, Michael Ontkean, Jennifer Warren, Lindsay Crouse and Jerry Houser.

Not long after originally writing this review, the legend that was Paul Newman sadly passed away, he left behind a movie legacy that few can touch, and trust me, this is one of them. A sports movie that never gets old and continues to pay off on repeat viewings. 8.5/10