Summer Game Film: Breaking down Eddie (1996)

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New York Knicks' Mark Jackson (31) passes off to a teammate while being pursued by Toronto Raptors' Dell Curry (30). (Mark Lennihan/AP)

As the summer winds down and the NBA’s news cycle slows (for now), we’ll be going back in time to review and break down some classic basketball flicks. From popular, star-studded blockbusters, to sports cinema’s hidden gems and everything in between, let’s re-visit some of basketball’s most iconic moments in film.

Today: It’s 1996. Sixth months before the release of Space Jam, another basketball movie with an equally fantastical plot is released. Can a fan win a contest to become the head coach of an NBA team, and turn their fortunes around? If that fan is the title character of Eddie, then the answer is a definite yes.

Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Frank Langella, Richard Jenkins, Malik Sealy, John Salley, Dennis Farina, Rick Fox, Mark Jackson, Dwayne Schintzius.

Release date: May 31, 1996.

Budget: $30,000,000

Box office total: $31,387,000

Peak box office ranking: 4

Rotten Tomatoes average score: 36% (audience), 30% (top critics)

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Why basketball fans should watch

If you like the NBA and its wide range of on-and-off court characters, then you’ve found the right film. For all its predictability and groan-inducing joke attempts, Eddie gives an “all-access” glimpse into life in the NBA that probably rings a little more true than you’d think.

The story

Edwina “Eddie” Franklin (Whoopi Goldberg) is a die-hard New York Knicks fan and season-ticket holder who earns a living as a limo driver. She has a chance encounter with her passenger, “Wild” Bill Burgess (Frank Langella), who has just become the Knicks’ new owner, and promises to bring change in the form of mascots, cheerleaders, and other marketing ploys of poor taste.

Before dropping him off at Madison Square Garden, Eddie explains to Burgess that he’s inherited a mess, a roster with ill-fitting parts pre-occupied with the off-court lifestyle, an utterly dejected fan base, and a star player who refuses to pass.

That night at halftime of a Knicks game, Eddie is “randomly” selected to come down to the court from her seats in the nosebleeds to shoot a free throw as part of a contest. Her prize if she makes it? Eddie gets to coach the Knicks in the second half. Wild Bill, a promotional tramp who sees an opportunity to generate publicity, pushes current coach John Bailey (Dennis Farina) out the door and replaces him with Eddie. She slowly earns the players’ respect and helps turn the Knicks’ fortunes around, all while — you guessed it — hilarity ensues.

Only there’s one caveat. It turns out that (as if this plot wasn’t wildly unrealistic until now) Wild Bill plans to relocate the Knicks to St. Louis. That is, until Eddie gets in his way.

Eddie in context

When picking a real-life team to use to portray a dysfunctional franchise the Knicks are probably the first that would come to mind.

But, in an ironic twist, when this movie was being made the Knicks were actually quite good! By 1995 when was being filmed, the team had made the playoffs each year since ’88. The Knicks had even reached the Finals the prior year, making them an obvious choice to star in a movie intended for a mainstream, non-sports audience.

And in case you were wondering, no, there was no real Curse of Eddie for the Knicks franchise, who made it back to the Finals in ’98 and wouldn’t officially become an NBA laughing stock until the 2000s.

As for Whoopi, she carries this movie, which, perhaps not coincidentally, appears near the fall of her movie career. Four years prior she starred in Sister Act, and starred in 14 films between then and ’96. That year she also starred in The Ghosts of Mississippi and another Eddie-esque flop, The Associate.

Most Valuable Performer

Maybe it’s because we have pretty low expectations when it comes to athletes parading as actors, but John Salley crushes it in his role as Knicks veteran, Nate. Playing a wise soul who goes about his job the right way — “I wish we could clone 12 of you,” Eddie tells him soon after getting the coaching gig) — Salley helps.

His line reads aren’t stiff compared to many of the other athletes in this movie.

Runner-up (and perpetual scene-stealer) goes to former NBA big man Dwayne Schnitsuz, whose character, Russian big man Ivan, draws a charge on Larry Johnson to win the pivotal game in the movie’s climax and helps send the Knicks to the playoffs.

Best Scene

Wild Bill’s introduction to the fans at MSG. Mistaking basketball’s most iconic barn for the Grand Ole Opry, he enters the court on horseback and greets the incredulous fans with a hardy “Howdy!”

Burgess promises a “big time” show each night. “Let’s kick off the Wild Bill era with a bang!” he exclaims, as fireworks go off. An errant flare soars above the court and hits Walt Frazier jersey hanging from the rafters, engulfing it in flames. “That’s Walt Frazier’s jersey!” several Knicks fans cry. “Hey, yo, that’s my jersey,” says a distraught Frazier. “And that’s just the beginning folks,” Burgess proudly declares. Not a great start to the Wild Bill era!

Best quote

Let’s get this out of the way first: Eddie’s trash-talk is just dreadful.

“You gonna try something new tonight, like trying to coach?” she goads Knicks coach John Bailey. “It’s the NBA, buddy – no buttheads allowed, but you keep coming back. I don’t understand it.”

“You see the sign back there?” she continues, pointing at a fan holding up a homemade poster. “It says John 3:16. That is not a biblical quote, baby. You know what that is? That’s your sorry road record ’cause you’re the anti-coach!”

But the best lines in the movie, the ones that don’t make you cringe, happen during the on-court banter. This one takes the cake:

With the Sacramento Kings’ Olden Polynice at the free throw line preparing to shoot, Eddie yells at her team from the sidelines.

Eddie: Hey, Patton, pass the ball! What are you, the black hole of basketball? Come on!
Kings player: (to Patton) You going to let her call you a black ho?
Darren Taylor (played by Mark Jackson): Man, not a ho, a HOLE.
Stacy Patton (played by Malik Sealey): What’s a black hole?
Olden Polynice (himself): A black hole is a theoretical object in space. It is so dense that matter collapses … and light itself cannot escape.
Terry Hastings (played by Rick Fox): I knew that.

Also, there’s a Donald Trump cameo during a montage in which, amid the Knicks breakout success under Eddie, tells a reporter: “Actually, hiring Eddie was my idea from the beginning.”

The cameos

Oh, the cameos. As with any film like this set in real-world New York City, there are no shortage of local celebrity cameos.

Off the court, you have Trump, former NYC mayors Rudy Guliani and Ed Koch, as well as Fabio and David Letterman. How’s that for a starting five?

Gary Payton, Anthony Mason, Herb Williams, and John Starks appear as amateur street ballers, and there are a host of NBA players and coaches making cameos as themselves.

The list includes: Alex English, Dennis Rodman, Muggsy Bogues, Nick Van Exel, Spud Webb, Doc Rivers, Vinny Del Negro, Vlade Divac, Terrell Brandon, Brad Daugherty, Mitch Richmond, Avery Johnson, and Larry Johnson, who plays the Knicks’ biggest on-court villain.

Quality of ball

It might be the best thing that Eddie has going for it. With a cast of players made up of legitimate NBAers — opponents included — the basketball in the movie is as close to pro level basketball as you’ll see on film.

Future faces

There are a few unheralded actors in this movie who went on to bigger things.

Aasif Mandvi, future The Daily Show star, appears briefly during the opening credits, driving a car while listening to a Knicks game on the radio. There’s Isiah Whitlock Jr., better known now as Senator Clay Davis on The Wire.

And then there’s Richard Jenkins, the longtime character actor who stole the show earlier that year in Flirting With Disaster, and went on to be nominated for two Oscars, most recently this past year for his Supporting Actor role in Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water.

Fun Fact

Langella, who plays the Knicks owner, and Jenkins, who plays the Knicks assistant coach, were both nominated for “Best Actor” at the 2008 Academy Awards — Langella for playing Richard Nixon in the excellent Frost/Nixon, and Jenkins for his role in The Visitor.

Summer Film Continuity

Keep a close eye out for Muggsy Bogues, in street clothes and branding crutches on the Hornets sidelines due to a real-life injury. Bogues filmed this at the same time as Space Jam, only in that film he had to pretend he was healthy. We chronicled that behind-the-scenes story here last week in our Space Jam breakdown.

The Soundtrack

A pretty forgettable collection, with the notable exception of Eddie’s title song that plays at the opening and closing credits, Coolio’s ’90s-ized version of ’70s funk tune, “It’s All The Way Live”.

Final Shot

Is Eddie an underrated, forgotten basketball film? Yeah, maybe a little bit. It bombed in theatres and (rightfully) is almost never in the conversation of great hoop flicks, but it’s still a worthwhile watch. It’s a far cry from “laugh out loud” funny (as in, I didn’t laugh out loud once while re-watching it), but it delivers a fun behind-the-scenes look at life in the NBA. Plus, it’s pretty great (and, in real life, about time) to see a woman as the head coach of a pro men’s team.

Verdict: 6/10.

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