Jumpers

By all means, Ron Shelton's WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP shouldn't be a good movie. Certainly shouldn't be a movie that I like. I fucking hate sports.

The brilliance of Shelton is that he's a strong enough storyteller to make a sports-hater like me truly appreciate what he loves about sports. The skill, the movement, the romance. He gets into the heads of the players. Crafts characters and stories that cross over.

But WHITE MEN, specifically, is one batshit movie!

It's got a silly title. Has the superficial appearance of a cheap buddy comedy. It's got about a dozen different endings, including a freaking JEOPARDY! sequence.

But there is so much going on in the movie...

You just have to watch that first scene through. See how it twists your expectations of what the movie's going to be. That first scene, where Woody and Wesley's character meet for the first time, oddly almost plays out like a small stage-play. Throughout the movie, it's constantly changing. Defying your expectations until you are watching a full-blown JEOPARDY! sequence and wondering, Why is this movie called WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP?

It doesn't even have a happy ending.

I bloody love how crazy the movie is. Watched it recently and had no idea where the fuck it was going. Popular movies should be this interesting.