White Men Can't Jump

White Men Can't Jump
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ron Shelton
Written by	Ron Shelton
Produced by	David V. Lester Don Miller Michelle Rappaport
Starring	Woody Harrelson Wesley Snipes Rosie Perez
Cinematography	Russell Boyd
Edited by	Kimberly Ray Paul Seydor
Music by	Bennie Wallace
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	March 27, 1992 (1992-03-27)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$31 million[1]
Box office	$90.8 million[2]

White Men Can't Jump is a 1992 American sports comedy film written and directed by Ron Shelton. It stars Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes as streetball hustlers. The film was released in the United States on March 27, 1992, by 20th Century Fox.

The film received generally positive reviews from critics and was a box office success. A loose video game adaptation was released in 1995, while a remake film was released in 2023.

Billy Hoyle is a former college basketball player who makes his living by hustling streetballers who assume he cannot play well because he is white. Sidney Deane is a talented but cocky player who is twice beaten by Billy.

Billy and his live-in girlfriend, Gloria Clemente, are on the run from the Stucci brothers, mobsters to whom he owes a gambling debt. Gloria's goal is to be a contestant on the television game show Jeopardy! and make a fortune. Sidney wants to buy a house for his family outside the rough Baldwin Village neighborhood. He proposes a business partnership with Billy where they will hustle other players by setting them up to pick Billy as Sidney's teammate. At first, their system is very successful, but when they unexpectedly lose a game, it turns out that Sidney had double-crossed Billy by deliberately playing badly to avenge his earlier loss to him.

Gloria and Billy go to Sidney's apartment and appeal to his wife, Rhonda. The women agree to share the money, provided Sidney and Billy team up for a major two-on-two outdoor tournament. Despite their constant bickering, Sidney and Billy win the grand prize of $5,000, largely due to Billy's ability to disrupt his opponents' concentration. Sidney is pleased with the outcome, but he cannot help mocking Billy about his inability to slam dunk.

Billy insists that he can indeed dunk and bets his share of the $5,000 on his ability to dunk but fails. When he tells Gloria, she leaves him. Desperate to get her back, Billy goes to Sidney for help. Sidney has a friend who works as a security guard at the TV studio that produces Jeopardy! His friend agrees to use his connections to get her on the show if Billy can sink a hook shot from beyond the half-court line, which he does. Gloria initially stumbles over sports questions but makes a comeback with a pet topic, "Foods That Begin With the Letter Q". She wins $14,100 on her first episode.

Billy sings Gloria a song he has composed and wins her back. As Billy and Gloria discuss their future, Sidney approaches Billy for help: His apartment was burglarized and his winnings were stolen. Gloria is expecting Billy to get a steady job, but Sidney informs him that two hoops legends of the L.A. streetball scene, "The King" and "The Duck", are playing downtown. Sidney asks Billy to partner with him to play against them. Billy agrees, offering to gamble his share of Gloria's take. Gloria warns that if Billy gambles with her money, they are through, even if he and Sidney win. Billy sides with Sidney, feeling he must honor the obligation he owes him for getting Gloria on Jeopardy!. They play against King and Duck and prevail, the winning point coming when Sidney lobs an "alley-oop" pass to Billy, who dunks it.

Billy returns home and is crushed to find that Gloria has left him. The mobsters who are after Billy find him, and he pays his debts. Billy asks Sidney to set him up with a real job, and Sidney remarks that Billy and Gloria may be better off without each other. The film ends as Billy and Sidney launch into another basketball argument and return to the court where they first met to play a one-on-one game, this time as friends.

Ron Shelton conceived of the idea for the film while he was working on a script for another movie, Blue Chips. He had been writing a scene that takes place on a playground and became interested in the "wonderful craziness that goes on behind those chain link fences".^[3] Shelton drew on his experiences as a former college basketball star and a regular at YMCA pickup games in Hollywood for the script.^[3] Shelton said he "love[d] the theater of [basketball], the posturing and the rituals."^[3] Shelton put aside work on the Blue Chips script to concentrate on White Men Can’t Jump.^[3]

Bob Lanier, Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks player and Hall of Famer, was hired as the basketball coach for the film.^[4] Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes, and other cast members attended an intensive month-long basketball camp to prepare for filming.^[3][5] During camp and film production, Lanier noted that between the two of them, Harrelson actually was the better player.

The character of Gloria was originally conceived as "an upper-class white girl at Smith or Barnard who runs away with a bad boy."^[5] However, actress Rosie Perez left a lasting impression on Shelton when she said she could not audition because she was "having a bad hair day", and he reconfigured the character to cast her.^[3]

Marques Johnson has a supporting role as Raymond, who loses a game to Snipes and Harrelson.^[6] Johnson was a star player for UCLA's 1974–75 national championship team coached by John Wooden and later played for the NBA's Bucks, Clippers, and Warriors. According to Johnson, former NBA player Reggie Harding was the inspiration for the character of Raymond.^[7]

Freeman Williams, who played "Duck" Johnson,^[3] also had a distinguished NBA career, playing for the Clippers, Jazz, and Bullets from 1978–86.

NBA player Gary Payton made an uncredited appearance as an unidentified street baller.^[8]

Two soundtracks were released by Capitol Records. The first soundtrack using the film title was released on March 24, 1992, and consisted mostly of R&B. The soundtrack peaked at number 92 on the Billboard 200 and number 48 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and features the single "White Men Can't Jump" by Riff, which peaked at number 90 on the Billboard Hot 100. The accompanying music video featured Harrelson, Snipes and Perez.^[9] AllMusic rated it two and a half out of five stars.^[10]

The second album, titled White Men Can't Rap, was released on April 7, 1992, and consisted entirely of hip hop. It reached number 79 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. AllMusic rated it two out of five stars.^[11] The only single coming out of the EP soundtrack was "Fakin' the Funk" by Main Source.

White Men Can't Jump soundtrack

1. "White Men Can't Jump"- 3:35 (Riff)
2. "Sympin" (Radio Remix)- 5:02 (Boyz II Men)
3. "The Hook"- 3:43 (Queen Latifah)
4. "Let Me Make It Up to You Tonight"- 4:30 (Jody Watley)
5. "Don't Ever Let 'Em See You Sweat"- 4:19 (Go West)
6. "I'm Going Up"- 3:40 (BeBe & CeCe)
7. "Can You Come Out and Play"- 3:45 (The O'Jays)
8. "Watch Me Do My Thang"- 3:58 (Lipstick)
9. "If I Lose"- 4:04 (Aretha Franklin)
10. "Jump for It"- 4:08 (Jesse Johnson)
11. "Just a Closer Walk With Thee"- 3:07 (Venice Beach Boys)

White Men Can't Rap

1. "A to the K" – 3:20 (Cypress Hill)
2. "Area Code 213" – 4:28 (Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.)
3. "Fakin' the Funk" – 3:30 (Main Source)
4. "Freezin' Em" – 5:14 (Level III)
5. "How to Act" – 3:14 (College Boyz)
6. "Now You're Mine" – 2:55 (Gang Starr)

White Men Can't Jump grossed $14,711,124 in 1,923 theaters in its opening weekend, with a total gross of $76,253,806 in the U.S. and $90,753,806 worldwide^[2][12] and was the 16th highest-grossing movie of 1992.

The film received positive reviews. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 75% based on 106 reviews, with an average score of 6.40/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "White Men Can't Jump provides a fresh take on the sports comedy genre, with a clever script and a charismatic trio of leads."^[13] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 65 based on 28 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[14]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars, saying it was "not simply a basketball movie", praising Ron Shelton for "knowing his characters".^[15] Janet Maslin from The New York Times praised Wesley Snipes for his "funny, knowing performance with a lot of physical verve".^[16] The film was a favorite of director Stanley Kubrick.^[17]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:
  • Nominated Sports Film^[18]

The category "Foods that start with the letter 'Q'" was an actual category on an October 1997 episode of Jeopardy!^[19]

In 2009, Nike teamed up with the filmmakers of White Men Can't Jump to assemble the package of shoes inspired by the characters Billy Hoyle and Sidney Deane.^[20][5]

A video game based on the film for the Atari Jaguar console was released in 1995.^[21][5]

In January 2017, Kenya Barris was developing a White Men Can't Jump remake with NBA star Blake Griffin and NFL player Ryan Kalil producing.^[22] In March 2022, rapper Jack Harlow was cast in the film.^[23]

• List of basketball films
• Reggie Harding

Wikiquote has quotations related to White Men Can't Jump.

• White Men Can't Jump at IMDb
• White Men Can't Jump at Rotten Tomatoes
• White Men Can't Jump at AllMovie