Jack Nicholson first put his well-documented enthusiasm for basketball to good use in this film, which he wrote and directed between his roles in Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge. William Tepper plays Hector, a student at a college in Ohio who shares a room with his friend Gabriel (Michael Margotta) and is the star player on the school's basketball team. Hector has been approached to quit college and play pro ball, but Gabriel is urging him to devote more time to radical political causes.
Of course, both have plenty of other things on their mind; Hector is having a clandestine affair with the wife of one of his professors (Karen Black), while Gabriel, in a bid to beat the draft and avoid going to Vietnam, is trying to convince the draft board that he's insane. Unfortunately, Gabriel is feigning madness so well that he's not so sure he hasn't actually become crazy. Director Henry Jaglom and screenwriter Robert Towne also have supporting roles, as do future sitcom greats Cindy Williams and David Ogden Stiers. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
All of the film's characters, and all of the performances, are touched with the kind of unexpected sensibility and decency that are rare in most films of this genre.
No way can it be said to work, despite the cast's cultish distinction, but it still knocks most of its quasi-radical contemporaries sideways as an index of doomed '60s/'70s causes and confusions.
It's a shame that one of the greatest actors of our time couldn't convince the lead in his directorial debut to give a credible performance. But William Tepper is only one of the problems with this meandering mess of a movie. It's a shame because there is a great story in here and the footage of the basketball games is
well shot. Not to mention, Karen Black and especially Bruce Dern give fantastic performances which only makes the other bad performances stand out even more. As a big fan of basketball and Nicholson, this was a bit of a letdown.
August 10, 2011
Tim Sigur
Super Reviewer
A campus revolution movie, Jack Nicholson's first foray behind the camera is cool at times but just too dated for the rest of it. When BBS hits, they hit hard (The Last Picture Show, Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider), but when they don't (Head, Drive, He Said) the movies are barely even remembered.
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