Kritiken

A peerless crowd-pleaser with a persistent downbeat undertone and a democratic spirit that doesn't see fit to sidestep interracial jibing and ball-busting, it's a beautiful bit of pop moviemaking.

Shelton's followup to Bull Durham is a stone cold classic: a big-hearted buddy comedy of dazzling cinematographic musculature, the camera bobbing and weaving cross-court with insane fluidity.

Birthday boy White Men Can't Jump is the one to catch or revisit here if you can only see one... Shelton practically had the lightly likable sports movie market cornered in the late 80s and early 90s with titles like Bull Durham, Blue Chips (screenplay) and Cobb, but none of those had the seismic X factor that is Snipes's explosive energy and watchability.

For my money, [Shelton has] made the best baseball movie (Bull Durham), the best golf movie (Tin Cup), and this, the best basketball movie, in part because he doesn't view winning and losing like everyone else does. To the extent that he'll allow himself the "big game" moments that define virtually every other sports movie, Shelton cannot abide victory as a have-it-all triumph where the crowd roars and the hero is carried off on his teammates' shoulders.

In a lot of ways this movie is as much a hustle as one of the scams it depicts, but it's so good-natured and up-front about it that one easily forgives the script's evasions for the sake of the surface glitter. (The basketball playing is pretty lively, too, even for someone like me who's allergic to sports.)

Shelton is wonderful at imaging colorful characters and inventing eccentric bits of business (The film makes elaborate, hilarious rituals out of the rapid-fire insults traded by the players in the pickup games), but less adept, as his disappointing ``Blaze`` of 1989 demonstrated, at telling a well- rounded story and developing a strong narrative rhythm.