Rapper Jack Harlow makes his movie debut in White Men Can’t Jump, an uninspired remake of the classic Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, and Rosie Perez movie.
Ron Shelton’s 1992 comedy White Men Can’t Jump is a stone-cold classic. It’s got three movie stars — Wesley Snipes, Rosie Perez, and Woody Harrelson — at the top of their game. It’s a funny film, devoting long stretches to effortless hangout scenes on Venice Beach basketball courts, where the characters talk endless shit while also playing some killer hoops. And it’s a layered character drama, where racial tension is one of several layers in a story about hustlers and trust.
The 2023 remake of White Men Can’t Jump, directed by Calmatic, is a much simpler comeback story. Kamal Allen (Sinqua Walls) was a former basketball prodigy whose college ball prospects were dashed when he got into a brawl and landed in jail. Ten years later, Kamal balances his time between his job as a delivery driver, his girlfriend Imani (Teyana Taylor) and their kid, and pick-up ball at his high school gym.
This is where he meets Jeremy (noted white rapper Jack Harlow), a guy with no job but a dozen side hustles, a juice-cleanse fixation, and a personal style best described as Instagram Hippie.
Jeremy loves basketball. He’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of the NBA and college ball, and in spite of surgeries to repair two torn ACLs that still cause him pain, he still believes there’s a future for him somewhere in the game. (Hence the juice cleanses.) Jeremy is also really damn annoying, and his inability to ever carry himself as a serious person, combined with his killer shot, makes him an unlikely ringer on the court. Before long, Kamal teams up with him to play pickup games for money.
Working from a script by Kenya Barris and Doug Hall, the 2023 White Men Can’t Jump is a remake in name only, a gut renovation where someone decided the “renovation” part wasn’t necessary.
