WHITE MEN CAN’T JUMP: MAYBE IF THEY HAD CALLED “BANK” FIRST?

White Men Can't Jump is an American Sports Comedy Film directed by Calmatic, and written by Kenya Barris and Doug Hall, with story contributions from Ron Shelton. The film is about a former star of the game whose injuries stalled his career, and a promising player who derailed his own future in the sport. Juggling tenuous relationships, financial pressures and serious internal struggles, the two ballers--opposites who are seemingly miles apart--find they might have more in common than they imagined possible. The movie is a remake of the 1992 film of the same name and stars Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow, in his acting debut, in the lead roles, alongside Teyana Taylor, Laura Harrier, Vince Staples, Myles Bullock, and Lance Reddick.

The film currently has a meager 26% on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 68 Critic Reviews), but an Audience Score of 65%, a 40 on Metacritic (based on only 22 Critic Reviews), with a User Score of only 2.3, and a humiliating 4.5/10 on IMDB (based on over 3,500 Ratings).

So, I’ll admit, I watched this movie with the expressed intention of hating it, simply for being a reboot of a film that I revere as a cult classic of my adolescent years. But I’ll confess, the movie wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

The story departed quite a bit from the original, which I appreciated if I’m being honest. The writing was a bit heavy handed and repetitive when it came to race, which got a little annoying after a while, but I understand what the writers were trying to do there. Some of the casting choices were a bit puzzling given that they did not match the characters from the original movie, but I guess I’ll have to give that a pass as the writers changed the names of all four of the main characters in the film from those of its predecessor. Jack Harlow left a lot out on the court, so to speak, with his performance, but given that this is his first outing as an actor, I expected him to bring up the rear among his cast mates, but the other heavily featured actors involved did a decent enough job getting the film from start to finish.

The original film, even after all these years, is still considered a cult classic. It used the sport of basketball to tell a story about confidence and managed to make itself a commentary on racism (of all forms). This film is not that, and I was surprised to find that I don’t necessarily think it was trying to be. And when you consider the many ways in which this story departed from the story in the original film, and the fact that the moniker itself is extremely outdated, one might start to wonder why they called this film, “White Men Can’t Jump” to begin with.

Let me be clear: this isn’t a great movie, but it is decent enough to sit through on a slow Saturday or Sunday. In fact, had the filmmakers decided to call this movie something else, instead of hoping on the Hollywood bandwagon, too afraid to make and release new content without attaching it to a previously successful film or television franchise, maybe it would be getting a better reception.

White Men Can’t Jump is available exclusively on HULU (with subscription).