White Men Can't Jump (1992)
Directed by Ron Shelton
Two street basketball hustlers try to con each other, then team up for a bigger score.
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3 films that influenced White Men Can't Jump
What critics say influenced White Men Can't Jump
Their sparring lacks the hostile, charged intimacy that Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte had in 48 HRS.
You may remember Perez from “ Do the Right Thing ,” where she played the Spike Lee character's girlfriend, but here she unleashes an entirely new side to her character, as a brassy Brooklynite who spends her days laying down the law to Harrelson and studying the almanac.
A witty, sharply observed tale that blends sports, comedy, and romance, “Bull Durham” was a sleeper when it came out, and it put on the map Ron Shelton, its writer and director, who followed up with other joyous sports picture, such as “White Men Can’t Jump” in 1992.
The directorial debut of established screenwriter Shelton (Under Fire, The Best of Times) made him a fixture on the Hollywood map for the decade to follow, though he would remain best known for his sports-themed films, including White Men Can't Jump, Tin Cup (again with Costner), The Great White Hype, Play It to the Bone, and Cobb, about the dark side of one of baseball's most famous figures.
Shelton, whose first film as a director was the great baseball comedy “ Bull Durham ” (1988), knows all about sports that are played by adults for adult reasons; about how the appearance of boys at play can obscure the reality of men at work.
Ron Shelton wrote and directed "Bull Durham" and he really understands jock culture.
Shelton, who plunged into the religion of baseball in "Bull Durham," works on a less metaphysical level here, but the results are only slightly less pleasurable.
Shelton, an ex-athlete himself who wrote and directed the very successful "Bull Durham" about minor league baseball, is back (after a detour called "Blaze") with a film that once again understands athletes from the inside out and demonstrates that the fringes of sport are where the most entertaining action is to be found.