Slap Shot

 

                                    A usual and sometimes unexpected movie nights I have with my dad, where he usually just tells me to pick out something to watch and times it becomes random, but I truly believe Slap Shot was a right choice to watch with my father even though this is a film that he's never seen even though it's a movie starring Paul Newman. Slap Shot is a classic Hockey movie where you can throw a rock in every in every part of North America and every NHL player or NHL Network expresses their love of this movie. As for me I kind of found this movie by accident mainly working on a failed attempt of ranking the best Hockey movies, and suddenly Slap Shot came along and it's up there with some of the few best Hockey films I've seen. 

                                    In a small New England (maybe Pittsburgh, or Philly) town of Charlestown, the local mill is about to lay off 10,000 workers. The town's minor league hockey team, the Charlestown Chiefs, is doing no better. After years of failure, this will be the team's last season. Exasperated player and coach Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) lets the club's recent acquisitions, the Hanson Brothers, play. The brothers' activity violent and thuggish style of play excites the fans. Dunlop retools the team, using violence to draw big crowds.

                                    I think when I first watched Slap Shot for the very first time, I viewed this as the Semi-Pro movie before Will Ferrell made Semi-Pro, with a lot of vulgar language as well as lessons that never learned well, let's be honest I don't believe there really was a lesson to be learned especially when it comes to character development. The development of the screenplay is both interesting moreover awesome because this vulgar language/never can be made again screenplay was written by a woman so to all those a**holes who don't have a sense of humor, when you thought women can't write those kinds of movies well jokes on you lame a**es. The movie no joke, is written by an actual female screenwriter named Nancy Dowd who based the scrip primarily on her brother Ned Dowd whose an actual real life Hockey player who also makes a cameo in the final act of the film, but back to bases the movie was based on Nancy's brother's experiences playing minor-league hockey in the U.S. during the 70's decade. At that time, violence, especially in low minors of Hockey, was a selling point of the game. Nancy Dowd who was living in LA, got a call from her brother, who was a member of a minor league team called the Johnstown Jets. Told her the bad news that the team was for sale, and so as most writers have that flash bulb of ideas decided to write the movie Slap Shot about a team that's up for sale. The movie came out in 1977 right before Star Wars demolished the Box Office as well as changed cinema and science fiction/fantasy forever, I guess the interesting thing is that this came out in February, and this is considered a cult following? Mainly yes, the movie does have interesting questions in terms of character development but deep down I think if I was going to recommend this film to anyone you just have to watch it for what it is, just a hockey film starring Paul Newman with a lot of bad language as well as vulgar language that you really can't make a film like this ever again. Speaking of Paul Newman, it's a bit of surprising as well as awesome that the filmmakers where able to cast Paul Newman in this film, especially when the language is something you'd never expect from Paul Newman, in fact Newman claimed that he swore very little in real life before making Slap Shot, moreover, said in a Time magazine interview in 1984 "There's a hangover from characters sometimes. There are things that stick. Since Slap Shot, my language is right out of the locker room!" For which Newman did state that he had the most fun he ever had made a movie was Slap Shot, moreover, said that his character is his most favorite character he's ever played. The interesting fact is that the film alone was released two years ago when the Philadelphia Flyer's won back to back Stanley Cups but got branded the name Broad Street Bullies for their fighting in every game they played in the early seventies so, really when you get a movie like this and NHL was big on fighting in the seventies then this movie came around that's best way to market movies like this. If there was one complaint I have about the movie alone it would most certainly be the piss poor ice conditions that the actors/hockey players we're skating on, I mean it's like every time they start to film the hockey scenes they just don't pay attention or get a Zamboni to clean the ice after every game, which I guess yeah you'd have to shoot those scenes in a hurray maybe get the entire sequences done and out of the way but you can at least clean the ice after a cut or a face off because it literally looks like they haven't even cared to make the ice in the Chiefs home arena look pretty. Having seen this four or five times I have to say that without a doubt this film does have that great comedic value especially when the film contains vulgar language and now comedy is just too safe to write for which makes comedy so boring when you're living in this decade of pure crap so deep down it's a blessing when you watch a film like Slap Shot and you get a breath of fresh air, even when you have a sense of humor like me. I would rank this in the top ten best guy movies of all time, but when it comes to recommendations, I would highly recommend it to anyone who still has a sense of humor, especially a movie you can't make these days as well as this decade. Moreover, my dad thought this movie was dumb and when my dad says this movie is dumb means he obviously loves the movie it's just like when we watch Reno 911, he looks at it as a dumb show but deep down he loves watching the show from start to finish.