Violence is never the answer – unless you’re a member of a minor league hockey team hailing from some small town in the heartlands of America, in which case it isn’t only allowed, but actively encouraged. They say hockey without violence is only half the experience – or at least this is what we’re led to believe in Slap Shot, a hilariously irreverent dark comedy by George Roy Hill, who reunites with his friend and collaborator Paul Newman to tell the story of a group of middle-aged men in a quaint working-class hamlet in Pennsylvania who find themselves resorting to desperate measures after the small hockey team in which they compete constantly struggles to win anything, with their ultimate resolution being to engage in violent brawls with competing teams, in the hopes of stirring up the crowd, who collectively seem to prefer these vulgar displays of fragile masculinity and misguided machismo to the actual game. Eventually, the team becomes known for their short tempers and rapid fists, leading to an upward journey that provides them with the fame and success they craved, but not without the consequences of their actions lingering quite closely behind them. A very funny film that is filled with eccentric characters, a painstakingly-constructed sense of humour and many outrageous moments that define so much of the film and what it represents, Slap Shot is a delightful curio of a film, one that takes a simple premise and builds it into an engaging and enticing work that carries a very particularly kind of gritty effervesnce, one that enthralls the viewer but still keeps us grounded within reality. Following acclaimed endeavours such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, Hill had a lot to prove with this film, and he succeeds wholeheartedly, crafting a memorable and engaging comedy that is effortlessly funny, genuinely provocative and entertaining in a way that will surprise many viewers, especially those who may be cynical about the genre in which it was made.

The primary themes that persist throughout Slap Shot are directly related to a side of the American Dream we don’t often see discussed, with is the importance of these unique pasttimes that are designed as a form of entertainment and a demonstration of the skills of those who participate, but have become such an enormous part of the national culture, the very act stirs a sense of patriotism and passion that is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Perhaps it doesn’t exist on quite the same level as baseball or American football, but ice hockey is a very popular sport in which many people are extremely invested, which proves to be fertile ground for Hill’s wonderful examination of the culture surrounding the sport, from the perspective of both the players and audiences that find themselves deeply captivated by these displays of raw, brutal masculinity. Sport is more about spectacle than it is skill, at least in terms of how it occupies a much more complex place within the national identity, being a fruitful industry in which only the most enthralling and engaging moments tend to be remembered, leading to an over-emphasis in finding the elements that have the potential for virality. All of this works together to create quite a stark image of hockey culture – and considering Slap Shot was written by Nancy Dowd, who was herself inspired by her own husband’s experiences as a hockey player in a small regional team, there is a lot of truth behind the madness that drives this film. Hill has a terrific eye for detail, and working with Dowd’s somewhat challenging script, he finds the perfect balance between ideas, exploring the influence of sport on American culture, as well as the specifics of how these games function, which proves to be an unexpectedly compelling endeavour that feels genuinely provocative and insightful in how it reveals different sides of something that many may not find to be particularly enticing at first.

Slap Shot is the third (and by far the most unconventional) collaboration between Hill and Newman, who had done some of their best respective work together, and who had an artistic kinship that defined their pairing. In theory, Newman is not the obvious choice for the role of Reggie Dunlop – he’s about two decades too old to play this slick, virile hockey player, and his reputation as one of the more clean-cut, earnest actors working in Hollywood contradicted the foul-mouthed, immoral nature of the character, to the point where Newman himself even outright said this role had quite an impact on his own life. Yet, despite not being an orthodox choice for the role, he’s an absolute delight – every moment he is on screen is effective, with his superb comedic timing being paired with his effortless charisma. It does help that he has an ensemble cast on which he can bounce off the clear eccentricities that define the character, with the centrepiece of the film (the increasingly violent fight scenes) mainly being handled by the younger actors, while Newman was more the catalyst behind these actions. However, he is not afraid to commit entirely to the role, and the film captures that elusive but fascinating spark of mischief that we don’t often see in some of his more heroic roles, but which always prove to be exciting additions to instances where he is allowed to forego the morals and instead embrace a more challenging kind of anti-hero, of which his Dunlop is one of his very best. Hill has always been able to bring out the very best in an actor that was already beyond established by this point, but yet still felt like he was in the process of being reinvented as an actor, primarily since he refused to rest on his laurels and instead had very little reluctance when it came to taking on a more unconventional but not any less captivating role.

Based on a cursory glance, Slap Shot seems amusing at best, trivial at worst – but yet Hill once again proves that he is not interested in the genre so much as he is the way these stories function that draws him in. The audience is right there with him – as we saw in some of his bigger films, the trials and tribulations of a pair of aging outlaws, or the inner workings of a confidence heist may not seem to be entirely enthralling on the surface if you are not already enamoured with those styles of storytelling, but yet he still brought such vigour and elegance to the films based around these themes, and he does the same with this project, which is squarely rooted within the world of competitive ice hockey, but yet doesn’t require the viewer to be at all knowledgeable or even vaguely interested in the topic, since the story itself is captivating enough to keep us invested. This is ultimately not a film about hockey – the technical details are kept quite vague and irrelevant, with the focus instead being on the gradual descent into madness experienced by these sportsmen, who suddenly realize that they don’t need to worry about thriving in their profession so much as being modern-day gladiators, putting on a show for gawking crowds that simply want to see violence and bloodshed, granted it is as energetic as the sport being played, if not more so. These ideas would be hopelessly overwrought in the hands of anyone else, but Hill sees both the humour and gravitas in the topic, and develops the film to be an engaging, captivating exploration of how sport can cause a shift in human behaviour, showing the animalistic side that emerges in the throes of passion. Balancing intelligent satire with some bawdy, offbeat comedy that is as broad as it is violent, Slap Shot proves to be exceptionally effective and genuinely quite compelling, finding the resonance in all the places we may not have initially expected.

Whether or not Slap Shot is effective ultimately depends on the extent to which the viewer is willing to embrace its peculiarities and engage with its unconventional style of storytelling. It does help that even the most surface-level analysis of these ideas is accompanied by a wickedly entertaining, off-the-wall dark comedy that never takes itself too seriously, and instead allows its more bombastic elements to elegantly fester into this oddly effective little comedy. Whether you view it as two hours of mediocre middle-aged men violently fighting with one another, or a more subversive indictment on sport and the role it plays in society, its impossible to deny that Slap Shot is about as fun as a film of this nature can get before it becomes too celebratory of its underlying themes, a narrow conceptual tightrope that Hill has deftly walked before, and which he does again at very moment in the creation of this film. Anchored by Newman’s tremendous lead performance, as well as a dozen other great actors that fit in perfectly with the film’s surroundings, it proves to be a tremendously entertaining piece of filmmaking that never takes itself too seriously, but is aware of the scope of its themes, so much that it exists at the perfect intersection between absurd comedy and sobering social critique, both of which inform every aspect of the film, and make Slap Shot such an unrequited, daring delight of a film, and one of the many examples of a sports film that doesn’t rely on the viewer’s interest in the subject, but rather their willingness to look beneath the surface and find the bundles of meaning that define – and sometimes contradict – such a wonderfully deranged narrative.