 | Hoosiers tells the fictional story of the Hickory Huskers -- a nowhere high school basketball team in a small town in very rural Indiana -- and the outcast, heretic coach (played by Gene Hackman) who comes to Hickory to work his miracles, and who is opposed at every turn by the oppressive, barren, and cynical local mentality that keeps nowhere towns... down and out.
Gene Hackman is pure iron-clad power as the irrepressible heretic coach who is given one last chance to redeem himself. Barbara Hershey is quite good as Hackman's defensive and skeptical love interest. Dennis Hopper is heart-breaking and heroic as the undervalued town alcoholic and embarrassing father of one of the team's players.
The unique payoff in this film for the viewer is the ultimate lesson it illustrates: There is no such thing as a lost cause or a hopeless case... losers can be winners, and neither fate, nor magic, nor divine intervention has anything to do with it. Only courage and effort are required. |
