Why White Men Can’t Jump is the best buddy movie ever
White Men Can’t Jump features realistic principal figures
From the showboating basketball standout, to the surprisingly athletic misfit, and the outspoken girlfriend with more sparks than a campfire, I feel like I’ve actually met every character in White Men Can’t Jump. Not only are the characters realistic, they are also relatable; audiences will see at least one person in the film they can identify with and will find themselves rooting for them as a result.
Woody Harrelson plays Billy Hoyle, a former college basketball player from Louisiana who finds himself on the streets of Los Angeles upstaging guys who don’t expect an oddly dressed White guy to be a good player. Wesley Snipes plays his best friend, Sidney Deane, a streetball player with all the right moves and all the trash talk to go with it.
Rosie Perez plays, Gloria Clemente, a woman with dreams of a better life for herself and her out of work boyfriend. If anyone crosses Gloria, she won’t back down; they are sure to get more than they bargained for.
What makes these characters relatable is the fact they find themselves pursuing dreams that are not easy to achieve. Sidney Deane has a wife and baby boy. They currently live in an apartment complex in a tough part of town; getting his family into a house in a nice neighborhood is all he can think about.
Billy Hoyle and Gloria Clemente are living in a motel together. Neither one of them has a job and they are looking for a way out. No matter who you are or what economic class you belong to, we’ve all had a dream that felt far away and hard to reach. The characters in White Men Can’t Jump are no different.