Empty the ghetto

Fast Break (1979)

Rated: PG

Runtime: 107 minutes

Stars: Gabe Kaplan, Bernard King, Michael Warren, Harold Sylvester, Mavis Washington

Director: Jack Smight

Plot: David Green (Gabe Kaplan) is a basketball guru who works at a deli and drinks tomato juice. Hustler (Bernard King) is a street-ball star, pool shark, and friend of David. Preacher (Michael Warren) has a hit-man after him because he got a 15-year-old girl pregnant. D.C. (Harold Sylvester) used to be a high-school star with offers from 148 colleges but is now on the run. Swish is a girl that pretends to be a guy and only David and Hustler know. David accepts the head coach position at Cadwallader University, a small school in Nevada, for the low price of $60 for every game he wins, with the chance of a 3-year/$90,000 contract if his team beats in-state rival Nevada State. With the help of Hustler, David rounds up 3 couldn’t-be-more-different New York hoop stars to travel cross-country to pursue their basketball dreams.

Rating—out of 5 basketballs: ½ basketball. Bernard King was pretty awesome in the ‘80s, probably the 2^nd best forward next to Larry Bird, so that has to be worth something.

Tournament seed: 13–15—movie hangs around with higher seed for the 1^st half, but the 2^nd half results in a blowout. Only advances in the tournament if matched up with an overrated team. Pick with caution.

I had such high hopes for this movie for some strange reason. The basketball scenes (which included former ‘80s Knicks star Bernard King) were really well done, but the rest of the movie was a mess. The music in the movie was a mixture of ‘70s porn music and “black music”, which a character in the movie seems to think is 1939 smash hit “If I Didn’t Care” by The Ink Spots. The movie is supposed to be a comedy, but it starts off with a “love story” that really goes nowhere because David’s wife Jan decides to stay in New York while David travels 2,500 miles to Nevada. The “comedy” then starts to kick in with the fivesome as they are road-tripping to Nevada. They are all enjoying some weed, which quickly turns into a frantic devouring of a pound of marijuana because they think they are being pulled over by the cops. The hilarious $60 per win salary becomes $70 as the team exceeds early expectations. And then the movie’s idea of what is funny is actually a confusing mixture of homophobia and racism. It is harmless in the beginning when it is implied that black people have no idea who Bob Cousy is. But then there is a “white guys suck at basketball” montage, followed by several uncomfortable scenes involving D.C. and Swish. Swish likes D.C., but since D.C. doesn’t know Swish’s secret he thinks Swish is gay, and he is awkward around her … until D.C. realizes he likes Swish, so he decides to pack up his things and go back to New York because you can’t have two gay men on the same team. David tells D.C. about Swish, so D.C. and Swish start seeing each other, which results in a scene in the locker room where they are spotted kissing by the team manager. Sprinkle in a lot of uses of the word f*g, and you have a storyline that was not handled well at all. David and Hustler “hustle” the Nevada State coach in a game of pool; but they don’t want his money, and they agree on a game in two weeks between their teams. An exciting finish is set up; D.C. is going to be arrested after the game by a New York cop that has tracked him down, and Preacher is on high alert because the hit man is there to shoot him at any time. Amid all the distractions and a physical game, CU is ahead by 4 points at the half. The N-word starts to drop, resulting in a Nevada State player being ejected, which David says is just “part of the game”. He later feels bad about it, but by that point his message seems lost. D.C. “hurts” his ankle in a plan to skip town to avoid getting arrested, but not before he beats up the hit man. But wait … D.C. has second thoughts and returns! His team trails by 6 points, cue the “CU coming back” montage, and they are down by 1 point with 15 seconds left. Swish decides that this is the best time to reveal herself, so she runs to the locker room, removes her headband and emerges to everyone’s amazement … a woman. She then slow-motion dribbles up the court and sinks a shot at the buzzer for the win. In the celebration that follows, David spots his mom in the crowd, who tells him that Jan is there too. He finds her outside and she tells him that she has decided to move to Nevada.

A not so funny movie ends with nothing dramatic to show for it either. One of the many funny jokes that failed was this exchange between David and Hustler upon David’s first glimpse of Preacher. David is curious about Preacher’s basketball abilities:

Hustler: “You give him a basketball, he got more moves than a $100 hooker.”