That Championship Season Reviews

Playwright Jason Miller made his motion picture directorial debut with this adaptation of his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Though he makes little effort to treat his material cinematically, Miller nonetheless invests his production with insight and high emotion. Twenty-five years after winning the state high-school basketball championship, four ex-teammates gather for a reunion with their coach (Robert Mitchum). George Sitkowski (Bruce Dern) is now the town mayor, embroiled in a reelection bid; James Daley (Stacy Keach) is his campaign manager; Phil Romano (Paul Sorvino) is a successful but unscrupulous businessman; and Tom Daley (Martin Sheen) is a writer returning home after an absence of several years. As the booze flows, the good humor begins to fade, old wounds and jealousies mixing with more current bitterness and admissions of personal and professional disappointment. Tempers flare, and though the coach tries to keep things under control, all he has to offer are courtside homilies. Though some have found THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON long and talky, patient viewers will find moments of profound insight into the masculine psyche, or at least into the macho code that governed life on the basketball court for these four characters 25 years ago and that still influences their actions. Although the performances are uneven, the cast is so excellent that even when the actors aren't at the top of their games, they are never boring.