Slap Shot is a hockey movie through and through, with soaring scenes close to the surface of the ice, close-ups of players being bashed up against the glass and a mouth guard full of obscenities. For anyone who isn't familiar with the high-octane sport, here's a brief run-down of the basics:
Now that you have a better understanding of how hockey is played, let's breakaway to the underlying story in the film other than the sport of hockey.
Reg Dunlop (Paul Newman) is a aging player-manager of the Charlestown Chiefs, a team at the bottom of the Federal League ranks that doesn't earn the respect of the other teams, their own fans or even their own members.
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| Original Theatrical Poster |
Dunlop is a terrible coach who can't get his team together - let alone his marriage - and hopelessly watches his team crack through the ice and sink to rock bottom. The opening credits are imposed over an American flag hanging in the rafters of the Chief's hockey rink accompanied by an organ rendition of the National Anthem. The flag rests in a flaccid position needing the support of a string to jerkily raise it up and wave above the fans, much like the Chiefs reputation in their small mining town.
Management spends its time concocting tasteless promotion tactics to bolster the team's attendance, such as holding fashion shows with players to give tickets away and signing the Hanson Brothers, a trio of violent goons desired for their brand of hard-hitting play.
Initially, Reg doesn't embrace the change in style of play, but hoping to change the outcome of another dismal season, Reg plans to use the violent tactics of the Hanson Brothers to secure more goals and win at least one game. The violent antics of the new squad brings people to see the team and is quickly embraced by members of the Chiefs except for Ned Braden, a young college-educated player who wants to play a more clean style of play.
Reg is far from a great player, let alone a good coach, but is great at getting what he wants. Needing the support of his star player, Reg flirts with Lily, the other half of Ned's failing marriage, in hopes Ned will unleash the aggressiveness within him.
The Chiefs begin to play better without the performance of Braden, rolling out win after win and advancing to the top of their division, upsetting every team in the league with their "bang 'em up" style of play. Reg can't get what he wants out of Lily, finding her to be more hopeless and depressed than the Chiefs were at the beginning of the season, so instead turns his interest to his ex-wife Francine, who wants nothing to do with him much like the fans wanted with the Chiefs earlier in the year.
Reg learns of the town planning to close the mill and resulting in the loss of 10,000 jobs, an event that would virtually cripple the attendance at Chiefs' games. Reg overhears the manager speaking about the sale of the Chiefs to another city and uses a past homosexual advance as blackmail against the team's manager to gain information about the Chiefs' owner.
The team is owned by Anita McCambridge, who took over the team after the death of her husband. Reg lays it on thick for McCambridge as he discusses his pleasure of how well the team's performing, and about how rumors of the sale of the team would be detrimental to the area. The owner appreciates Reg's optimism and informs him of a tentative, lucrative deal in place, but says she will stand to make more money if she folds the team and chalks it up as a tax write-off.
Reg becomes outraged at the disclosure and storms off to prepare his team for the Conference Championship Game. Reg holds a pre-game speech and tells his team he wants to play this game straight this time, "just like old-school pure hockey" and not like the other games that got them to this point. The only problem is the other team, the Syracuse Bulldogs, feeling slighted by the Chiefs' unabashed brand of hockey earlier in the season, have come to get their fists bloodied.
The film was directed by George Roy Hill who directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), both starring Newman. As Hill raised his trophy for Best Picture with The Sting four years earlier, Slap Shot, with its cast colorful characters on a quest to raise their own trophy, including a departure for the seasoned Newman with his rolodex of vulgar words, remains Hill's most beloved film and one of the great comedies.
Written by Nancy Dowd, she used her own experiences of her brother's career in minor-league hockey as a blueprint for the foul-mouthed locker-room debauchery, but the film has a subtle hint of women's feminism lying under the frosty surface.
Slap Shot is a character study of a man who can't get his shit together - not his team, not his career and not even the women in his life, whom he believes he has control over. But the real truth is that each woman in the film controls Reg like a puck on slippery ice.
Reg tries desperately to rekindle the relationship with his ex, forfeits the strategy with Lily (who goes back to Braden), the only women he has a relationship with in the film turns out to be a lesbian, and the owner of the Chiefs, Anita McCambridge, slashes his desperate plea to have the team remain in Charlestown, deeming the sport too violent.
There's a moment toward the end of the film when Reg receives a contract to manage the Minnesota Nighthawks of the NHL, he sees Francine driving away with all her belongings stuffed into her car. He flags her down and tells him his plan for them to move to Minnesota together.
"Jeez, we got a lot of years between us Francine. Some hard miles, you know?" Reg says as Francine bids farewell, unsure, as is the audience, if Reg truly got the job in Minnesota, or wheter it's another ploy to get what he wants.
Rejoining his teammates, Lilly asks him, "Is she coming to Minnesota?"
"Oh, for sure!" Reg's smile fades as he watches Francine's car disappear down the road like a puck going into the net.
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