The 5 Most Un-Athletic Sports Movie Performances
We crown the most ridiculous performances in the four major sports: basketball, football, baseball and boxing (sorry movie-hockey, we'd compare you to real hockey but nobody remembers what an NHL game looks like anyways), and give the lifetime achievement award to the actor most frequently miscast as someone with any semblance of athletic prowess.
5. Tim Robbins as Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham
Kevin Costner tends to be able to mimic believable athletic motions, which is probably why he’s played a baseball player in 177 movies thus far in his career. Unfortunately for fans of sports flicks, Costner’s dramatic range doesn’t extend far beyond “my facial nerves have been damaged, rendering me incapable of expressing human emotion.” Hoping that someone with acting chops could counterbalance Costner’s post-accident Christopher Reeves performance, Tim Robbins was cast as Costner's flame throwing rival. Producers apparently didn’t count on the fact that Robbins’ pitching wind-up would look like an arthritic donkey attempting to do yoga, and encountering violent muscle spasm midway through his routine. Thus, the film proves the old adage that if you're looking for someone to play a pitcher whose Major League-caliber fastball has earned him the nick name 'Nuke,' you might want to watch him throw first.
Honorable Mention for Un-Athletic Performance in a Baseball Movie
Gary Busey as Chet ‘Rocket’ Steadman in Rookie of the Year
Less convincing pitching motion than his 12-year-old co-star,
Chelci Ross as Eddie “Jobu Needs a Refill” Harris in Major League
While Harris probably has the most ridiculous throwing motion of any pitcher in fake-baseball history, the movie doesn’t take itself seriously enough for it to matter.
4. Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson in White Men Can’t Jump
The producers of White Men Can't Jump inexplicably decided to cast the retarded bartender from Cheers as a street ball phenom, which makes even less sense when you take into account that Harrelson is a slow white guy whose jump-shot looks more Bill Cartwright than Larry Bird. We have a better idea of why producers thought that Snipes would work as the smack talking, juke throwing point guard. It’s the same reason he’d probably be the first guy picked up at the Minneapolis YMCA: white guys all assume that athletic looking black dudes are awesome at hoops. One can only imagine the awkwardness that ensued when Snipes showed up to the first day of the shoot dribbling the ball off his foot, and writer/director Ron Shelton had to avoid explaining why he'd assumed Snipes would be good at basketball in the first place.
Honorable Mention for Un-Athletic Performance in a Hoops Movie
Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf
For most of the film, the producers hide Michael J. Fox’s lack of coordination behind a Harlem Globetroter in a wolf costume, but when the script calls for Fox to play sanz body hair, it’s high comedy as he leads his team using what can only be described as a side armed jump shot.
Dwayne Schintzius in Eddie
Among the stiffest athletic performances by a white guy in the history of sports movies, Shinzis gets extra points for having been in the NBA at the time of the performance.
I just read a review on netflix about White Men Can't Jump where someone copy and pasted the entry from this article.
ReplyAn atomic wedgie for not including hockey, and I know the real reason is that hockey movies have tended to use actors who are hockey players first, actors second because you can't fake hockey ability (see, e.g., "Miracle" and "Slap Shot"). Most unrealistic hockey player? Russell Crowe in "Mystery, Alaska." By a "very slow because he can't do a hockey stop" mile.
ReplyTrue but still a good movie.
sans not sanz*
ReplyRaging Bull? LaMotta said in all sincerity that given about a year more of serious training DeNiro could have been a champion. DeNiro boxed in three legitimate amateur bouts in his preparation for the role and won two of them.
ReplySo he boxed like an amateur? Good point. . .
fuckin' teen wolf...
ReplyHas anyone seen Freddy Prinze Jr. as a pitcher in "Summer Catch?" When they show him about to throw the friggin ball, its embarrassing! Just like dumb Michael J. Fox actually jumping while taking a foul shot in Teen Wolf. God I get the chills
ReplyPretty good article, except for one major disagreement that I have with your analysis of non-Athletic actors, acting like professional athletes, is your criticism of Woody Harrelson in White Men Can't Jump.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesFrom many sources including Ron Shelton and George Clooney, Woody Harrelson has a really strong basketball game. And, while his game isn't a marvel of athletic beauty to behold like a Michael Jordan, or something. It's not terribly clumsy or bad either. Woody simply plays basketball like a white basketball player "whose got game".
So, your criticism of Woody Harrelson for being a bad basketball player simply because he plays like a white basketball player, is almost as racist as the producer and director of White Men Can't Jump for casting Wesley Sniper simply because he's a black actor with an athletic build.
I completely agree. Woody Harrelson's athletic performance in WMCJ was more than respectable. In fact, I believe he had to "tone down" his athleticism so Wesley Snipes would not look so bad.
I loved that movie. And I don't think either of the leads did too bad as basketball players. Anyone bashing Snipes should go outside and try to put the ball through their legs and make a layup.
"It's a movie. They can shoot it over and over. Oh, he had dozens of chances."
You will probably need all those chances too.
Yeah, not only was it obvious Woody could play, the word at the time was if he hadn't followed the path of acting/theater/drama geekiness he had the talent to be a college star/potential pro. Like, that good, 99th percentile good.
And Snipes was terrible, though that was only as he had no experience playing. He was more than athletic but had trouble dribbling the ball.
I remember an interview with both of them talking about how this was a running joke considering the theme of the movie, Woody being so good and Wesley having hardly never touched a basketball in his life.
louis gossett, jr. in 'diggstown.' great movie, just completely unbelievable.
ReplyI don't know about Tim Robbins being on the list. If you read a lot about the behind the scenes of Bull Durham, he could actually get some heat on the ball. The reason for the ridiculous wind-up was because Susan Sarandon's character was having him do the long motion like Fernando Valenzula.
ReplyHe looked retarded. Even as a kid I knew he looked ridiculous. Im sure that to actors, anyone throwing 60mph is getting "heat on the ball." Little Leaguers throw 60.....
The red on gray background gives me a headache.
ReplyIn Teen Wolf, MJ Fox did not do the scenes with the werewolf playing basketball; a double was used. MJ's clumsiness in his own scenes was part of the character.
ReplyDid you not read the article? It's CLEARLY mentioned already!
he already said that
Let's face it; movies are cast mostly on the basis of stqr power, not athletic ability. That's because movies usually require acting and the ability to speak words, two skills noticeably lacking in athletes.
ReplyYou don't say? Thanks for the insight.
In Teen Wolf, MJ Fox didn't do the basketball scenes in the werewolf make-up; an extra did. You can tell; the extr is much taller and thinner.
ReplyKevin Costner played minor-league baseball, hence his ability to realistically portray a baseball player.
ReplyLeft off the list:
Tom Berenger in the "Major League" films. I'd come up with a disparaging metaphor for his throwing style from behind the plate but can't top "throws like he's been sitting on his hand for a week." Classic.
Susan Anton in "Goldengirl". Body double used in long shots of her running was an athlete. Close-ups of Anton running looked like she learned how just before filming began.
No Adam Sandler as a superstar quarterback in The Longest Yard?
ReplyYeah you're right. He didn't even look like he could play high school football.
FAIL. For including Raging Bull.
ReplySeriously though, everything besides ragging on what Siskel and Ebert called the greatest movie of the 1980s was great.
Agreed. Stopped reading there.
But he's right about those scenes being filmed using similar techniques to snuff films. I've seen a lot of snuff films, and the homage element is pretty clear there.
They casted Woody Harrelson because the movie was about a basketball player who was about to hustle people for money because he didn't look like a basketball player. They wouldn't get someone who looks like he's good at basketball to fit that character. He was the perfect person cast for that character. Did the person who white that part about White Men Can't Jump even see the movie?
Replythe problem comes when you realize that neither one of the 2 guys picked to be "Basketball sharks" can actually, y'know PLAY BASKETBALL
Actually, Woody Harrelson is a better basketball player than Wesley Snipes. He played basketball in college.
don't really agree with you about Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes.
ReplyI think angels in the outfield displayed the worst baseball mechanics in cinematic history.
Replythe top four sports in my country are AFL, cricket, rugby and soccer.
Reply Hide All See All 5 Repliesthat is all.
...and you also believe in a monarchy, which is based on the principle of "Divine Right", meaning people who lead your country were born into a family because GOD SAID SO...so, "god" wanted the chosen people to be unattractive, wear racist costumes at halloween, have no actual use in society, and wear a steering wheel instead of a halo in heaven. Your sports are now invalid.
that is all.
@michaelz
I'm pretty sure Isshiah is from Australia, you know that little country most of you guys thought was Korea for a while? Yeah that one. Since AFL is an Australian adaptation of rugby.
That is all.
They still put the Queen on their money.
That is all.
@st_michaelz
Beleive me not everyone in the commonwealth supports the royal family. I would love to see the Queen behead and to see the whores head on a stake outside westminister
Australian Rules Football is several years older than Rugby. It is an adaptation of a game called Marngrook that the Aboriginals have been playing since forever.
That is all.