What ultimately made the original so indelible, apart from the brimming charisma of the star-studded cast, was its sharp critique of stereotypes: There’s, of course, the provocative title itself. The phrase “White Men Can’t Jump” is presented as a racial truism as common as the sky is blue, which feeds into the perception that white folks can’t play basketball either. It’s a reversal that initially pitches Black people as racially insensitive to whites. Shelton, however, ever-so-subtly spends the movie reconfiguring the phrase: Harrelson really can’t jump (though he could if he practiced), but his nascent leaping ability is a metaphor for his lack of drive. While he chides Snipes for showboating, hotdogging, and not playing fundamental basketball—a plethora of dog whistles neatly sewn into the perception of Black people as jobless thugs—it’s Snipes who is the loving father working several jobs to support his family while Harrelson gambles away his and Perez’s money.
While one shouldn’t entirely write a review around how a remake compares with its predecessor, Calmatic is begging audiences to see his version as the superior offering: Every character makes a quip about how the previous film is outdated. The film minimizes the stereotypes attached to Black athletes and retorts that no one really thinks white men can’t jump anymore. In the dynamics between Jeremy and Kamal, the film wears unseemly post-racial clothes by instead offering half-hearted yet on-the-nose jokes about gentrification, reparations, and clout chasing. The film can nary fathom something like the Angel Reese incident, a Black woman accused of poor sportsmanship against her white opponent in the women’s NCAA championship, happening. Nor does it understand the importance of Rosie Perez’s character in the previous film. Rather she is reimagined as Tatiana, a hairdresser with barely any screen time or narrative heft.
There is some shallow attempt at navigating Black masculinity and the need for self-care in the face of Black vulnerability, as seen in Kamal’s relationship with his father and the anger issues that stem from his fear of disappointing him, and as represented in his loving relationship with his daughter and wife (an underused Teyana Taylor). But the film is too busy trying to be a drowsy comedy to pull off sturdy character-building.
It doesn’t help that Calmatic simply lacks the visual storytelling chops to do so too. While slick and aerodynamic, the basketball scenes and the camera swooping through the gameplay with precision don’t feed into the story. What are the mini-narratives in these pickup games? It’s a question left largely unanswered, causing these scrimmages to feel stale and without rhythm (the choppy editing doesn’t help either).
There are so many half-dispensed threads that when we arrive at the conclusion, a final two-on-two championship game culminating in a far happier—and less honest ending—than the previous film, we discover no tension or cause for euphoria. By the end of this “White Men Can’t Jump,” there is only stunned resignation for how near this film remains to the banal ground.
On Hulu today.