Hoosiers

This film has so much heart. Every time I watch it, I am on the verge of tears for almost the entire runtime.

The filmmakers are at the top of their game.

Hackman is wonderful as an inarticulate man tense with the struggle to curb a flaring, mysterious anger.

Shameless, yes, but open your eyes, close your mind, sit back and enjoy.

Bobby Knight would not be amused, though Tark the Shark might've had a good laugh at the naive masquerade.

Pic belongs to Hackman, but Dennis Hopper gets another opportunity to put in a showy turn as a local misfit.

I love a good sports movie. There's a formula to them, which this film actually went a bit against. I really enjoyed the historical accuracy of how they used to play basketball in the '50s.

Strong performances by Hackman and Hopper but there were some storylines (mainly the love story) that didn't work for me.

Dennis Hopper was totally clean and sober at this point in his life, and with that clarity and his practice in sense memory he could tap into his own experiences to make Shooter a real, fleshed-out human being.

There are quite a number of practicing and shooting and gameplay montages, but it's actually the character interactions that remain most stirring.