White Men Can't Jump

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