If you’re old, like I am, then I regret to inform you that your eyes are not deceiving you: this is a review of White Men Can’t Jump . . . the remake. Let’s just hope they leave My Cousin Vinny alone.
The basic premise of the 1992 original remains unchanged: two down-on-their-luck basketball players—one white, one black—team up to hustle games on the streets based on the assumption that the nerdy looking white guy can’t play. What the remake tries to correct from the original, which starred Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, is the overabundance of charisma and chemistry between the two leads.
Sinqua Walls plays Kamal, the biggest high school prospect since LeBron until an incident led to his arrest. Now he’s a washed-up package delivery driver playing pick-up at his old high school gym with his friends Renzo and Speedy. Jack Harlow, who I’m told is a very popular rapper, plays Jeremy, a smart-mouthed and frivolous individual, barely making it as a basketball tutor/homemade kombucha huckster. Jeremy’s little secret is that he used to play for Gonzaga and still yearns to play professional ball, despite having two gnarly knee scars from two torn ACLs.
Walls is decent as Kamal, a man just trying to get past his past when the world won’t let him. His supportive but ailing father is played by Lance Reddick, an always welcome addition, made all the more bittersweet since his passing. Harlow, on the other hand, is an odd choice. I’m sure the kids love his music, but as an actor he is wildly inconsistent. Whether it’s the sweaty script by Kenya Barris (You People, Blackish), or Harlow’s delivery itself, he’s entirely unbelievable in serious situations. On the court though, his devil-may-care trash talking did garner some giggles. Unfortunately, the best characters are in the movie the least; Kamal’s friends Renzo and Speedy (Miles Bullock and Vince Staples) serve as a courtside chorus, giving the often unrealistic meta-dialogue the best delivery one could hope for.
So far, I’ve described a very middling buddy “comedy” sports movie. It’s a remake of a 31-year-old movie, repackaged for today’s youth, assuming they wouldn’t be interested in watching a movie that old. That might be true (I don’t think it is), but it still doesn’t justify this watered-down retread. White Men Can’t Jump was released a year after the LAPD brutally beat Rodney King and mere weeks after the L.A. riots of 1992. The way that movie discussed race felt raw and a little dangerous, while offering a safe, albeit clichéd buddy comedy foundation on which the country could process the tension of the times. Also, it had Rosie Perez.
It is now 2023 and not much has changed, which might make it seem like a good time to revisit this story, but not only does the new White Men Can’t Jump fail to address these serious issues in any meaningful way, their exclusion feels like a marketing decision made to appeal to the widest audience, a good description for the whole movie, in fact (though doubtless some dimwits will still decry it as “woke”). It’s a shame, if not a surprise, from this unnecessary remake sent straight to Hulu. Also, there’s no Rosie Perez.
