White Men Can't Jump

Snipes and Harrelson bounce off the screen like Michael Jordan, while Shelton and cinematographer Russell Boyd perfectly capture the agile thrills of the game itself. A double-whammy slam-dunker of a movie. Read full review

Here is a comedy of great high spirits, with an undercurrent of sadness and sweetness that makes it a lot better than the plot itself could possibly suggest. Read full review

A fresh and exuberant romantic comedy that is as smart about playground basketball as Bull Durham was about minor league baseball. Read full review

Shelton takes us right to the street hoops and slam dunks a winner. The movie is funny, it's fast and it's funky. [26 Mar 1992]

It’s overly long and the Rosie Perez sub-plot leads it astray, but mostly, it rocks. Read full review

Smartly spreading his story beyond the end lines of the basketball court, writer-director Shelton has knocked down a sparkling, slice-of-life Americana story. As rough and shiny as chain nets on a sweltering summer day, White Men Can't Jump is a poetic, rag-tag triumph. Read full review

Graced with good-humored comic energy, they overcome sizable script problems and turn Ron Shelton's White Men Can't Jump into a sassy and profane urban fairy tale that finds laughs in some very clever places. Read full review

White Men Can't Jump isn't a terrific movie, but it's the best showcase Snipes has had so far to demonstrate how hip he can be. Read full review

White Men Can't Jump isn't perfect. But most of the time it's a lot of fun. Its funky moves are going to put more smiles on more faces than any regular season or tournament basketball TV throws at you. [27 Mar 1992, p.25]

It's a funny, frequently rousing film, with a warmly appealing acting partnership at its center-between basketball hustlers Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Read full review

As in his previous film, the game action is secondary to the zany characters, and there certainly are a lot of them. In fact, they bring such charm that White Men Can't Jump, a truly dumb movie, is a very funny movie. [27 Mar 1992, p.3F]

Knowing and original, Men's comedy never quite soars. Yet jump it does, and high enough. [27 Mar 1992, p.1D]

The terrifically confident Mr. Snipes gives a funny, knowing performance with a lot of physical verve. And Mr. Harrelson (of Cheers) further perfects the art of appearing utterly without guile. Their comic timing together shapes the film's raucous wit, and their basketball playing looks creditable, too. Read full review

[Shelton's] direction here is fluid and energetic; he's got the juice for the straightaways, and the control for tight corners too. But it's the inspired jabber that fuels the film. Read full review

Shelton's strength is character, streetwise wit and funky, lived-in sexuality. Snipes, one of our most versatile young actors, gets to demonstrate his wonderful comic chops, and Harrelson, whose goofiness is part of his scam, partners him beautifully. Read full review

Perhaps the first sports movie ever made in which the characters talked as good a game as they played. Read full review

For the most part, it's a provocative one-on-one between racial opposites Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Their relationship -- or perhaps, their ongoing collision -- is the best part of the movie. Read full review

The basketball sequences are the most magical in the film -- both Harrelson and Snipes can play -- but more to the point, he also has a great gift for evoking the needling hostility of athletes, the way the games aren't just about talent but about ego, will, self-esteem. Read full review

The movie doesn't add up to very much, though. It's breezy, likable, forgettable. Read full review

At its best, White Men Can't Jump gives two talented actresses a chance to shine. At worst, it's just somewhat less coherent and compelling than Shelton's previous work. [27 Mar 1992, p.19]

What Shelton fails to provide is a coherent structure; the film is wearyingly repetitive. The boys do the same hustle and hurl the same racial epithets as our goodwill dribbles away. Read full review

Ron Shelton's second outing since his breakout success with Bull Durham aims to be a high-energy remake of The Hustler in a street-basketball setting, but succeeds only intermittently. Read full review

This picture is packed with fun, but it doesn't really go anywhere, and elements that summon up memories of The Hustler don't work in its favor. Read full review

Starts off as a comedy about an unlikely friendship between a white man and a black man who meet over a pick-up basketball game on a Los Angeles playground. Then it switches gears and for a time seems as though it's going to be a more serious look at these men and their world. Finally, it just falls apart completely, and the last hour is a chaotic, meandering mess. [27 Mar 1992, p.D1]

Problem is, the duo's roundball exploits are a strictly one-note grift, and Shelton gropes to give the movie some substance off the court. [27 Mar 1992, p.5]

The pedigree is impressive and so is the start, but in the long run, White Men Can't Jump lives down to its title - it doesn't even get off the ground. [27 Mar 1992]

Shelton's enthusiasm is remarkably refreshing, but it's not enough to mean well, and we don't know much more about these people or their world at the end than we learn at the beginning. Read full review

White Men Can't Jump clocks in at just under two hours of court-stomping, in-your-face, anything-goes street basketball. And that's all, folks. [31 Mar 1992, p.E6]