MYST 3

This is a movie I have wanted to see for a very long time now. I finally got around to it the other night. I really enjoyed watching this movie mostly because basically the whole time they are doing something involving basketball. Basketball is what intrigued me to give this movie a go in the first place. This movie was directed by Ron Shelton. Ron Shelton also directed "Bill Durham" 1988.

“White Men Can’t Jump” is a great mix of sports, comedy, and drama. With the main character being Billy Hoyle, played by Woody Harrelson, and Sidney Deane, played by Wesley Snipes. That makes for an all-star duo for the film. Billy Hoyle moves into a Los Angeles apartment with his girlfriend Gloria Clemente, played by Rosie Perez, and he goes onto street ball courts to hustle other players. One day Sidney Deane and his team were playing when a player on the other team got hurt. Deane urged the other team to pick the white bystander who assumed to not be able to play, that bystander being Billy. The team picks Billy and to everyone’s amazement Billy leads his team to beat Deane’s team. Billy’s strategy is to act like he can’t play at first, and then turn on the gas and not miss a shot for the rest of the game. Deane realized he just got played, and he wants in on Billy’s game. They then partner up to hustle the courts of Los Angeles. While Billy would hustle, his girlfriend would research obscure facts due to the fact she longs for the chance to be on the game show “Jeopardy.” Everything starts to go down hill near the end of the movie. Billy and Gloria fight all the time and they split up, and get back together a lot. When Gloria gets on “Jeopardy” she wins. She gives Billy money to get new and better clothes to clean himself up, but he uses that money to bet. Billy was warned if he uses the money to gamble that him and her were done for good. Billy still uses the money to gamble with deane and Billy winds up doubling his money. Sadly, Gloria kept to her word and left him for good. Billy is crushed, but at least he has Sidney Deane with the new found friendship throughout the movie. I really enjoyed the film and give it a 8/10.

One thing I did not like was how predictable the movie was. Although there was a valiant effort to try to keep the audience on the edge of there seat with each pick up game, everybody knew what the outcome of the games were going to be. Not even just the games were predictable, the character Gloria, played by Rosie Perez, was a very hot headed character. If you saw Billy Hoyle make a wrong move you knew that Gloria was going to explode on him when he returned to the apartment. Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.


In all, I really enjoyed the movie and the camera work. For example, in the scene where they are coming home from the 2-on-2 pick up tournament and Billy bets Sidney he can dunk. They show it from an angle coming from the street. It looks as if your a person standing on the other side of the street watching this bet happen. That was my favorite shot of the whole movie because you saw these two black figures standing next to a hoop and one of them trying to dunk and failing but the other one is laughing at him. Again as i stated above this movie was great and i recommend it to everyone.