Peter Lovino
Director Calmatic presents his second remake of 2023 in this cover of Ron Shelton’s 1992 hit.
“White Men Can’t Jump” holds a special place in the hearts of many moviegoers; The buddy comedy may not be the enduring sports classic that writer-director Ron Shelton delivered with his baseball mash-note “Bull Durham,” but it vividly captures the world of the up-and-coming basketball player and features three standout performances from Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson and Rosie Perez. Director Calmatic’s 2023 remake not only fails to regain the energy of the first film, but also seems to misread the cinematic language of streetball and is largely uninterested in using stars Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow, except as delivery systems for presentation.
Updated with only an excess of contemporary slang and overblown backstories, White Men Can’t Jump illustrates the risk aversion and lack of imagination of storytellers digging up intellectual property on behalf of corporate leaders looking for common ground.
Walls plays Kamal Allen, a former pro ball hope-turned-package-deliverer who rekindles old successes by dominating his buddies Speedy (Vince Staples) and Renzo (Myles Bullock) at his local health club. After meeting Jeremy (Harlow), a former fellow athlete with two cruciate ligament injuries who is raising money with a dodgy looking player training program that involves meditation and homemade detox juices, Kamal is asked to enter a tournament for a $25,000 prize – Dollars to win.
He reluctantly agrees to help his wife Imani (Teyana Taylor) fund her dream of becoming a hairdresser, but Jeremy’s eccentric behavior conflicts them when they’re off the court. Meanwhile, Jeremy hopes to earn enough money to pay for knee surgery, sparking his own basketball ambitions despite objections from his girlfriend Tatiana (Laura Harrier), a dancer and choreographer. As the tournament nears, the duo’s chances of taking part are in jeopardy, as it’s unclear if they can muster enough money for the entry fee of the better team – or each other – but unresolved events from the past.
Even without being a Sidney Deane/Billy Hoyle superfan, Calmatic’s film draws (mostly unfavorably) comparisons to its predecessor in many ways, starting with its depiction of the game of basketball, let alone streetball, that Kamal and Jeremy play. Shelton managed to convey more than just the structure of the game, he captured the players’ personalities and their relationship to each other on and off the field. In the 23’s version, it’s not just the logistics of the game that change throughout the film – that’s because the entire film is played five-on-five up to the tournament and then switches to three-on-three only screenwriters in Kenya Barris and Doug Hall can explain – but the actual game isn’t well documented, doesn’t showcase each character’s talent level, and isn’t just plain exciting. What’s more, apart from the opening situation where Jeremy fools Kamal, they’re not even show-offs, which takes away the thrill for them (and us) of watching their opponents being thwarted by their sudden strength.
The feel-good approach, no one is less talented than anyone else, seems like a by-product of both changing times and protecting feelings, but it robs her journey of the uncertainty of whether her ruse will work, the greater possibility that their opponents might be pushing them back, or just the drama of who’s going to win each showdown. But by instead loading the characters with origin stories steeped in resentment, tragedy, and unfulfilled dreams, Barris and Hall yearn for a level of personal and professional transcendence at the end of this hero’s journey that the rest of the film simply cannot sustain. Heck, with two torn cruciate ligaments, Jeremy shouldn’t even be able to last more than a few minutes on the court, but what worked in Shelton’s story as a blue collar character study has morphed into a redeeming hero’s journey where everyone is just that Right finds what they want in the end.
As much as we can see his skills under the basket, Walls is a compelling player, even if he seems (fairly or not) preoccupied with the burden of his moment of failure and a malnourished subplot arc involving his doting father, Benji late Lance Reddick. (Reddick’s character is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but the screenplay seems to know less about the disease than it does about the effects of double knee injuries.) For better or for worse, Harlow is unforgettable as Jeremy, given his unfair responsibility for updating racial issues to bring dynamism to a film that seeks to be both progressive and leverage dated takes for comedic purposes, but the rapper-turned-actor is at his best when actively paving the way for his more experienced co-stars.
As their respective love partners, Teyana Taylor brings no-nonsense appeal to the role of Imani, Kamal’s steadfast, supportive wife, while Laura Harrier, previously a successful scene thief on Spider-Man: Homecoming, largely patiently waits for Tatiana to become important to Jeremy’s story.
The film marks Calmatic’s second remake of the year after New Line’s “House Party,” and once again it either ignores or doesn’t understand what made its predecessor a touchstone for the generation. The most prominent references he uses relate to the original duo’s eccentric opponents – one now wielding a flamethrower – and to Gloria’s impulse, reenacted by Tatiana, to get her partner moving while driving. But if there aren’t any similarities that go deeper than a dimension, why do the films even call the same name?
At a time when basketball — and hustling — is more popular than ever, there may be more audiences than ever for the story that White Men Can’t Jump has to tell. Unfortunately, this film feels like a weekend fighter at the local gym agreeing to play a horse game against LeBron James: it may rank the same as size, but it falls short where it really counts.