White Men Can't Jump (1992)

Review by All Movie Guide
Ron Shelton's trash-talking comedy on the world of street hoops hustlers entertains while commenting incisively on black-white, male-female relations. The film concerns a pair of basketball hustlers, one black (Wesley Snipes) and one white (Woody Harrelson), who join forces to hustle other players on the basis of the white guy's supposed lack of "game." Every major city in the U.S. has high-quality street games, swarming with enough big-ego, sometimes big-time players, that the circuit can be ripe pickings for a pair of con men with a good act. With this white doofus character, based on NBA player and coach Scott Skiles and on Shelton himself, these two have a great one. The film, which captures this kind of game better than any other ever has, revels in its edginess, its intense competitiveness, and to the spiraling rituals of hilarious virtuoso verbal insults in which it's steeped. It also conveys the physical toughness of these referee-free games in which "no blood, no-foul" is the norm. In a film that constantly touches on the deceptiveness of appearances, the two partners stumble over racial stereotypes, while testing to see how far they can trust one another. For each, hustling has a different meaning: for Snipes' character, it just one of the many pursuits with which he supports his family, and for Harrelson's, it's a way of fueling his compulsive gambling. Understandably, neither of their women are too happy about having to rely on a con game, but Rosie Perez, who is hysterically funny as Harrelson's girlfriend, is at first, more tolerant. Not surprisingly, the men find that, despite their differences, they have more in common with each other than they do with their women. But given what we have learned about these men, the bittersweet ending seems inevitable. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide