Funny, cynical and irreverent.

Paul Newman is the coach of third rate failing minor league hockey team, The Charlestown Chiefs. The town is hit hard by unemployment and this appears to be the Chiefs' last season, however, if the coach can whip up the team up into a winning frenzy, then the unknown owner might just find a buyer and save all their carers? The management bring in three odd looking brothers who, once unleashed, take the whole team on a blood thirsty winning streak right to the championship final. The crowds flock in thirsting for more blood, but then the problems start to arise.

Slap Shot is a tremendously funny film, it's also incredibly violent and often vulgar in dialogue, but be sure to know that both things go hand in hand here (or should it be glove in glove?) to create one of the smartest sports pictures in the modern age. The hockey sequences are excellent (especially to a non fan like me), and the script bristles with course and biting humour. Slap Shot on its initial release was frowned upon by many critics, it was considered too profane and overly harsh with the win at all costs theme driving it forward. However, it's now rightly embraced as the smart and intelligent piece that director George Roy Hill wanted it to be seen as. A new generation of movie fans have started to seek it out and its reputation and fan base grows ever more larger by the year.

Newman was a bona fide star, his hair silver grey but his good looks still firmly intact, his performance has a grace about it that oddly sits nicely amongst this cynical stab at professional hockey; even if his characters' clothes are, in truth, icky. It would be a big disservice if I didn't mention the impact of the Hanson Brothers, surely one of the finest combinations to have ever graced a sports movie? They are at once unassumingly likable, the next gleefully violent, they are the glue that binds the whole picture together. Film is filled out with sparkling support work from the likes of Strother Martin, Michael Ontkean, Jennifer Warren, Lindsay Crouse and Jerry Houser.

Not long after originally writing this review, the legend that was Paul Newman sadly passed away, he left behind a movie legacy that few can touch, and trust me, this is one of them. A sports movie that never gets old and continues to pay off on repeat viewings. 8.5/10

Big problems, both personal and financial, for a struggling minor-league hockey club and its aging player/manager Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman). Nobody's coming out to see the games, despite an onslaught of cheap, misguided promotional campaigns, and several seasons' worth of meager attendance has killed the team's chemistry. When ownership ponders throwing in the towel, Dunlop goes for broke, abandoning his ideals in favor of the bloody, fists-first melee method. If you can't beat 'em with finesse, in other words, beat 'em with your fists. That sudden about-face, plus the introduction of three nearly identical, horn-rimmed goons (Irish triplets, it turns out) catches on with the working class locals and the team becomes a hot ticket virtually overnight.

It's an off-color premise, and a film that's certainly not bashful about probing the dirtier attitudes and actions of the traditional locker room culture. The unrelenting foul language was a big deal when this first came out, but that's less of an eye-opener today than the rampant homophobia. But hey, in both cases, it's an accurate portrayal. This is a seedy situation, in a particularly seedy era, occupied by generally seedy people. Even the screen looks filthy. A lot of the humor missed me, though, and when that fails it's a major drag. Too long, too single-note, too drab; it wants to be a rollicking good time, riding the fresh buzz of a wild night with reckless friends, but more often resembles the shattered, smokey aftermath of such a party.