Rapid Response: Slap Shot

As far as cult comedies about hockey go, they don’t get any better, funnier, likeable or thought provoking than “Slap Shot.”

I say that non-existent comparison because for a cult comedy about hockey, “Slap Shot” is hardly as low brow as its scenario suggests. Director George Roy Hill (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Sting,”) inserts more ideas into the opening moments of “Slap Shot” than a similar film would dare shake a hockey stick at.

The title credits role in front of a ratty American flag hanging in a gymnasium as a chintzy band plays The National Anthem in the background. Before long, the social commentary, not the hockey or violence, is brought to the forefront as blue-collar Americans are losing jobs and housewives are on the brink of snapping.

Somehow, Paul Newman is perfectly cast as the aging hero, a man whose face in the late ’70s was the embodiment of a worn American everyman rather than the distinguished, old age movie star he would become. He’s thrown into a world where everyone wears their hatefulness and vulgarity on their sleeve. The movie is unabashedly despicable in these early moments, i.e. a little taboo and a little racist, and it only proceeds to get worse as the mentally challenged goons employed as cheap team ringers end up abusing every player on the ice.

“Slap Shot” has hardly an actual joke or punchline. It’s all violence and unnecessary vitriol spewed at this hockey team, but what distinguishes it as a smart and often hilarious comedy is that Roy Hill does it all gleefully so. It wears its vulgarity like a badge of honor, and before long, it starts to develop a heart as things continue to get even worse.

In this hateful world where no one gives half a shit about these guys, “Slap Shot” is about a way to get ahead and make people care by causing them to hate you even more.

Roy Hill then has found an unexpected way to make a film about violence, anger and instability. The Hanson Brothers who pummel other players into the wall seem to be carefree figures playing with their zip cars and accumulating a cheering section. At the same time, the young hotshot who agrees to be benched rather than fight (Michael Ontkean) begins to suffer from depression and a crumbling marriage. Those more in touch with their anger and frustration at the world and the failing system are the healthiest. But Roy Hill is smart enough to not glorify violence by staging a goofy, exhibitionist ending in which Ontkean proves that violence only has pleasures that are skin deep.

If “Slap Shot” doesn’t sustain the energy it finds early on, it’s because the realistic violence and roughneck swearing are only amusing for so long, which as Roy Hill proves in his finale, is exactly the point.