SLAP SHOT (1977) *** Major league Paul Newman/George Roy Hill tackle minor league hockey action through the medium of gratuitous violence, wanton obscenity, small town politics, ubiquitous beer and the women who bear it? You've got to admire them for seeing the possibilities. Obviously this is a classic for teenage boys, and overgrown ones. The violence is so fun, and even more the celebration of the violence, that it's easy to miss, skip, or ignore the finer points that the film's trying to make. Which is fine, it doesn't make them all that well anyway. It's also easy to overlook the complexity of Newman's portrayal, which would be a mistake: aging hockey idol, no doubt grown up on rural myths of masculinity, struggling through a world in which one of his lovers (Melinda Dillon in incredible casually shot sensuality-can this really be Ralphi's mom?) likes women, his star player's (Strother Martin, intellectually on the gentle power play) libido is wayward if undefined, ownership will do anything to avoid spending or making money, the fans are friendly but bloodthirsty idiots, his Pontiac GTO has a 442, the press can be led by the nose, his dream wife is boring but won't leave her salon for him, and salvation is offered by three young guys who look like the Ramones and bring an electric race car set on the road with them instead of drinking. The players can complain all they want but look at those fashions! People knew how to dress then (except for Paul, and all that atrocious fur), and how about those throwaway scenes like the rusted van driving through the defeated steel mill town to the accompaniment of Stevie Nicks singing "Rhiannon"; or the wife leaving town with a rented trailer in the middle of the parade?
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