I was and still am a big basketball fan, growing up in the UK, the NBA was really popular in the 90s. There are some great basketball movies, for me the trifecta are He Got Game, Blue Chips, and today’s subject, 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump. I love, love, love this movie! I feel that it has aged like a fine wine, and if you were around in the 90s, I am sure you will have a blast watching this.
Where to Watch White Men Can’t Jump (1992)
White Men Can’t Jump was released on . You can stream the film from a digital platform such as Apple TV or Amazon Prime Video.
The Movie Review
Now, clearly, this is a basketball movie, and if you are into basketball, you will get more out of it. However, a huge part of what makes White Men Can’t Jump such a great movie is that anyone can have fun with this. The duo of Woody Harrelson’s Billy and Wesley Snipes‘s Syd, have such great chemistry together. Chemistry that we would see again a few years down the line in Money Train.
Billy was a college basketball star, and he lives with his girlfriend Gloria. Gloria is played by Rosie Perez, and she is a ton of fun. Billy makes some money by hustling people by playing street basketball. Due to him being white and kind of weird, people never assume he will be any good, but that is when he strikes and beats them to take their money. Gloria has dreams of being on the TV show Jeopardy, and as a result, she is always studying up on random facts.
The Chemistry Between Billy and Syd
Syd is the ultimate street ball player. Syd plays flashy basketball and is always running his mouth with hilarious trash talk. Eventually, Billy and Syd start working together, and they make some good money, hustling other folks by tricking them into picking Billy as Syd’s teammate.
Character Development in White Men Can’t Jump
In addition to the basketball stuff, this movie does a great job of humanizing Billy and Syd. Billy has gambling debts and ends up nearly losing Gloria. In many ways, Billy has a gambling addiction now that I think about it. There are times when you are just screaming at the screen for Billy to get his crap together, as he is a likable guy.
Despite Syd being all mouth on the court, Syd is a good family man and is desperate for a better life for himself, his wife, and his kids. As I said, they really do make you care about both these characters and despite them always ripping on each other. You can see the bond start to grow and them becoming legit friends. I have seen this movie many times. As a teenager, it was one of those movies that I would watch over and over again. I even had a legit copy of it, not one I taped off the TV or that I got as a pirate copy from the local market!
The Bizarre Video Game Tie-In
One other thing I want to mention here is that there is a video game tie-in to White Men Can’t Jump, and it is so weird. To start with, the video game adaptation came out after we already had two versions of NBA JAM! Even weirder, the game was a console exclusive to the Atari Jaguar, and it did not come out until 1995! The game…. Is not as horrible as some people make out, but there is no way you would play it over NBA JAM, especially as the game has very little to do with the actual movie.
Why White Men Can’t Jump Deserves a 4K Release
This is a movie that really needs to get a 4K release. l love the Blu-Ray steel book release, but a new 4K with a bunch of cool behind-the-scenes extras would be awesome. The only negative for this movie for me is that I missed out on the awesome sets of shoes that Nike made a little over a decade ago in tribute to this movie. They look so 90s, are awesome, and now command a pretty hefty price on the secondary market if you can find them.
Thoughts on the 2023 Remake
Before I sign off, I want to talk about the 2023 remake of White Men Can’t Jump. I would say that the 2023 White Men Can’t Jump is up there as one of the most unnecessary remakes of all time! Someone recently asked me what I thought of it, and my initial reaction was that it is pure garbage, but then I actually thought about it. If that movie was not called White Men Can’t Jump, I may have said that it was actually passable, not great by any means, but certainly not the garbage I said it was. Still, I would not recommend watching it; stick with the original, as it’s a 90s classic.
