The language caught me off guard. I didn't expect it from such prestigious actor and director. This was pre-Animal House. Anyway, it's funny af! And I don't care about hockey.
I also love that it was written by a woman.
Gleefully politically incorrect and raunchy look at professional minor league hockey team at risk of being sold due to the closing of a mill in the Steel Belt. Newman's character concocts a plan to "goon" it up to make the team popular again. The acting and production is all impeccable, but it doesn't exactly have great pacing. The Hanson Brothers sequences are absolute gold, though. It never makes up its mind if it wants to decry violence or embrace it, though. Not sure what to make of that.
Big problems, both personal and financial, for a struggling minor-league hockey club and its aging player/manager Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman). Nobody's coming out to see the games, despite an onslaught of cheap, misguided promotional campaigns, and several seasons' worth of meager attendance has killed the team's chemistry. When ownership ponders throwing in the towel, Dunlop goes for broke, abandoning his ideals in favor of the bloody, fists-first melee method. If you can't beat 'em with finesse, in other words, beat 'em with your fists. That sudden about-face, plus the introduction of three nearly identical, horn-rimmed goons (Irish triplets, it turns out) catches on with the working class locals and the team becomes a hot ticket virtually overnight.
It's an off-color premise, and a film that's certainly not bashful about probing the dirtier attitudes and actions of the traditional locker room culture. The unrelenting foul language was a big deal when this first came out, but that's less of an eye-opener today than the rampant homophobia. But hey, in both cases, it's an accurate portrayal. This is a seedy situation, in a particularly seedy era, occupied by generally seedy people. Even the screen looks filthy. A lot of the humor missed me, though, and when that fails it's a major drag. Too long, too single-note, too drab; it wants to be a rollicking good time, riding the fresh buzz of a wild night with reckless friends, but more often resembles the shattered, smokey aftermath of such a party.
Shout by Carlos Fernando IbarraBlockedParent2019-01-26T03:45:17Z
Probably sits as the best sports movie of the 70s. Did not remember at all, it being soo damn raunchy, especially coming from Newman. I wonder how crucified this movie would get if it came out in today's market...