If you know me, you know I’m not a sports guy. I can watch a game (and I did play fantasy basketball for one season) but sports just aren’t necessarily my jam. I do enjoy the occasional sports movie, however. Today is one of those occasions. This one is a special occasion as it stars one of my favorite actresses and has a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. It also revolves around basketball, the one sport I actually like (but don’t really pay attention to), and a member of Onyx in the cast and Onyx on the soundtrack. How could we lose team?
What are we watching today? Sunset Park, the 1996 white savior high school basketball movie starring Rhea Perlman and Fredro Starr, produced by Danny Devito and directed by Steve Gomer, the guy who did the Barney movie. The 90s were full of these movies where a white savior teacher figure gets personal with a group of tougher high school students and helps them see their worth. There were so many of them that there was even a parody of them. It’s a dumb trope but it sure did sell tickets back then. I’ll be getting to a couple of those movies eventually, but today we need to focus on Sunset Park and its 13% score. I’m actually really looking forward to this one because it’s been on my list for awhile but this week was the first time I saw it streaming for free anywhere (thanks Tubi). So let’s bench ourselves and get our heads in the game by pressing play.
Our movie begins appropriately with an Onyx song and shots of street scenes in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. We meet Phyllis Saroka (Rhea Perlman) on her daily commute to her job as a high school PE teacher. Students’ backpacks are searched and they have to go through metal detectors. In the locker room, Shorty Doo Wop (Fredro Starr) tells his basketball team mates that they’re getting a new coach. Phyllis walks through the halls discussing her personal life with Marisa (Trula Marcus), another teacher at the school. Phyllis stops at two teens making out and tells them to use a condom. Phyllis vows to leave the school at the end of the year as the kids are driving her crazy. In the teacher’s lounge, Phyllis is being annoyed by another teacher who wants to take her on a date but she is distracted by a flyer looking for a new basketball coach and she takes off to try and get the job.
The basketball team meets their new coach and finds out it’s their PE teacher Phyllis. Shorty Doo Wop helps her out by pushing his team to follow her orders and giving her guidance on how to coach as she uhhh doesn’t seem to know anything about it. Shorty insists the reason they all lost last year is they’re all acting like “bitches” and are not open to taking new direction. During scrimmage, Shorty falls and cuts his head open, busting some stitches he had and bleeding all over. He tells Phyllis that he’ll be fine but to make sure the team practices. Phyllis walks home and Vincent Pastore is her building’s super. She gets into her apartment and finds her place has been robbed and her boyfriend Ronnie is missing. The cops tell her there was no forced entry and asks if she has serial numbers written down to help track her electronics. When she goes into her closet, she sees Ronnie’s clothes are gone and realizes he robbed her.
She goes to dinner with her friends Mona (Carol Kane) and Barbara (Camille Saviola) and tells them of her woes and her ultimate plan to buy a restaurant in St. Croix and get out of Brooklyn. At the next practice, Shorty sits with Phyllis as his stitches are still healing and he helps her coach the team while they bond. Shorty asks Phyllis what’s wrong as he can sense something is up, but she holds back from spilling. Shorty tells Phyllis to make Busy Bee (De’aundre Bonds) and Spaceman (Terrence Howard) should be waterboys because they suck and Drano (Antwon Tanner) has a good shot but is apprehensive to take shots. She asks Shorty what his deal is and he declares he’s the closest thing to perfect she has on her team. She tells the team not to be late for tomorrow’s scrimmage and tells them they’re doing well.
That night, Phyllis goes to see a kung fu movie but can’t hear the movie because of loud teenagers watching the movie and seemingly smoking a blunt in the theater. Phyllis yells at them and tells them to sit on a Twizzler and realizes it’s Shorty, who tells his friend to shut up because that’s his coach. At the scrimmage game the next day, the team does poorly against the visiting team. Shorty tries to get Phyliis to do some actual coaching but she doesn’t know what she’s doing and tells them the wrong plays to execute. Shorty asks her why she even took the job since she doesn’t seem to know or care about knowing about basketball.
Phyllis goes home and studies basketball coaching while eating Ruffles or a generic equivalent. At practice, she tries to get them to work on actual defense plays but the players ignore her, seemingly upset at her ability to do any real coaching previously. Later, Mona gets a new TV with Phyllis and they watch NBA games, taking notes. At the next practice she tries to coach again but the team once again claims they don’t hear anything immaturely. In the locker room before the game, Shorty is smoking a blunt to a Tupac song. When the game begins, Shorty is acting like a clown off the weed. He clearly wasn’t smoking Branson. He does a bunch of dancity dance maneuvers through the court but makes a basket. He tires to call foul on a play he was in the wrong on and Phyllis pulls Shorty out to put Busy in, but Shorty threatens Busy to stay put. Phyllis tells Shorty he can be the coach since he wants to so bad and goes to sit and watch. Shorty is a terrible coach especially because he’s high as hell.
After the game, Phyllis barges in the locker room and confronts the guys about how they played. They tell her she’s not a good coach and if they had one, maybe they’d play well. They tell her to quit and she confesses that she has never coached before but she’s capable of learning and committed to winning. She asks them to work with her and show her some stuff about basketball so she can show them “some stuff about winning” so they don’t have to have a season of humiliation. No one is willing to help. Even Shorty mean mugs her. They all sit together on the court and they tell her to respect their minds and they’ll respect hers, basically. They stay late and teach her a bunch of plays, giving her homework.
The next day, they have a road game and their bus driver is late. On the bus, the teammates talk shit with each other. Phyllis smells lit weed and starts to chastise the team for smoking but the bus’s transmission shuts down causing her to panic. She sees a city bus nearby and runs the team over to it. They get to the game two minutes before they would have had to forfeit. She tries to introduce herself to the rival team’s coach but is ignored and goes to sit courtside for the game. Phyllis insults a referee who insulted her fist and gets a technical foul for the team. The rival team keeps fouling the Sunset Park boys but the refs aren’t calling any of them and the team gets walloped in the first half. In the locker room, Phyllis confronts them all about their need to be fearless and she decides to stick Spaceman in the game and the team starts to have a turnaround. The ref once again disrespects Phyllis but this time Busy stands up for her, getting himself ejected from the game in the process. Spaceman wins the game for the team and they celebrate in the face of an angry rival crowd. Phyllis walks out with some BDE on the ref and rival coach.
Afterward in the locker room, Phyllis congratulates the team but they seem downtrodden. Shorty tells her that last year, they won their first game but then promptly lost the next fifteen. She insists they have it in them to win and gives them homework; bring in a quote about what it takes to make a winner before the next game or don’t play. Before the next practice, Shorty tells Phyllis that Busy got shot. She goes to visit Busy in the hospital and he tells her that he got shot over his coat. Busy insists he’s lucky he got shot with a .38 because he’ll have an easy recovery. Before the next game, Phyllis tells the team Busy will be okay, but is angry when she asks for their homework and no one has it. The team wins the game but Phyllis is angry. She leaves while Shorty tries to talk to her. At school, in Phyllis’s office, Spaceman comes into her with a big knife saying he’s going to kill Morris Bernstein (Scott Burkholder), another teacher who humiliated Spaceman. He breaks down to her about his humiliation and she tells him to put his weapon in her desk drawer. As Spaceman goes to class and Morris begins to insult him, Phyllis grabs Morris by the collar and tells him to stop bullying Spaceman and to start teaching him and caring about his feelings. Spaceman confesses that science is his favorite subject and Phyllis tells Morris he better stay in line before she walks away embracing Spaceman. I know this is White Savior bullshit but Rhea and Terrence have good chemistry.
At the next practice, the team works hard and Phyllis makes them listen to polka while they do wall squats and she eats Twizzlers and drinks a big Slurpee. Before the next game, the team has a rap about their team and they technically say the movie name which you all know I love. Phyllis confronts them once again about doing their homework. They all have quotes but from the other players on the team. Phyllis laughs it off and puts her hand in the circle with the team. On the court, Butter (Talent Harris) is ball-hogging and finessing to try and impress some ladies in the audience. Phyllis pulls Butter out and tells him not to try so hard because the girls are naturally into him so he should play with his team and not try and show off as an individual. He takes her advice gratefully and cheers on his team. They win another game and after Phyllis and Shorty take a walk and Shorty tries to ask for advice on dating. He tells her his crush Cheryl (Malinda Williams) didn’t show up at the game, but he wrote her a love letter and asks Phyllis to read it for him before he sends it. She says she will as long as he works on his temper. She is very entertained by the poem Shorty wrote for Cheryl and tells him it’s great and to give it to her if she deserves it. Shorty has an ill Polo Sport quarter zip fleece pullover on and he asks Phyllis to hang out with him sometime and see Bruce Lee movies.
The principal Mr. Santiago (John Vargas) tells Phyllis two of the team members (Drano and Butter) are failing off and chastises her for not insisting they work harder on school. She asks for one more marking period to get their marks up. On the bus to the next game, she confronts Drano for acing every test but not going to class and Butter for going to class but not handing in his homework. She also mentions that Spaceman is on probation and if he fails one more drug test, he’ll do time. Spaceman is upset that his business now public. Shorty tries to stand up for Spaceman but he gets upset. She then calls Shorty out for being on probation for selling pot. She tells the team that they need to make sacrifices for the good of the team and she’ll be checking homework and their eyes to see if they smoked.
The team wins their next game after utilizing the advice Phyllis gave them. Busy joins the team in the locker room, recovered from his shooting, and they welcome him back lovingly. Phyllis has Busy start in the next game and he seamlessly meshes with the team. Their team bonding is apparent and they keep winning because they’ve finally come together. Shorty and Phyllis hang out in a diner and Shorty asks her what it would be like to be white. Funny enough, Fredro’s Onyx group mate Sticky Fingaz would release a song called “What If I Was White” five years after this movie. Great tune. Shorty tries to explain to Phyllis that his home environment is kind of hopeless with all the adults around him in dead-end jobs and drinking heavily. She tries to tell him he can go to college, but he insists that that’s never been something he was told he could do. He asks why she’s never been married and she tells him he’s not allowed to ask a woman that. He then confesses he’s a virgin which is weird. She tells Shorty about her plan to move to St. Croix to open her restaurant after the season ends so she can finally be great at something. Shorty is upset that she’d no longer be their coach. He calls her out, saying this whole thing “making extra cash coaching Black kids in basketball” is a big joke to her. He tells her he sees right through her and leaves angry.
Before the final game of the season, Phyllis comes into the locker room and finds that Shorty is missing. As the game begins, Phyllis learns Shorty is in Riker’s Island and won’t make the game. She goes to visit him and he has a black eye. He won’t talk to Phyllis, though. She tells Shorty she has a friend (Barbara) who is the best criminal lawyer in Brooklyn so she can help him if he talks to her. He confesses his friend tried to shoot someone, but Shorty was holding his friend’s gun when he got arrested so he was charged with the shooting. She vows to get Shorty out. In court, the judge is Hattie Winston from Becker. Phyllis stands up and states she can provide an alibi for Shorty as it was the night they were together. Barbara argues that the other party involved in the shooting has not shown up and he has a poor record. Judge restores Shorty’s probation instead of locking him up. He leaves with his people and ignores Phyllis.
The next game is for the city championships and the team and Phyllis are all fired up. Well, except for Shorty. He’s there but standoffish. Cheryl finally showed up but he’s still in a pissy mood. On the court, Shorty is having a tough time with his temper and being an asshole trying to aggressively guard the other team. He steals the ball but misses his shot trying to be a showboat. He’s pulled for his playing and chastised by Phyllis. Oh NOW he’s worried about looking like a dick. Phyllis has to keep telling him to sit down, threatening to keep him out of the game if he doesn’t listen. Some other dude is flirting with Cheryl in the stands, further agitating Shorty. Phyllis tries to put Shorty in at the last 18 seconds but he refuses to play, making the entire team call him a punk. They win with a buzzer-beater and they all celebrate, except for Shorty who walks off alone, sullen.
In the locker room, Shorty starts a brawl with the rest of the team. Phyllis breaks it up and Shorty threatens everyone on the team as Phyllis tries to eject him. He confesses to Phyllis that he was actually behind the shooting he was charged with, calling her a sucker and telling the team that she doesn’t know shit and is leaving to open a restaurant after the season. He leaves as Spaceman calls him a punk and there’s clear tension with the rest of the team. Outside, Shorty sees Cheryl talking to the guy from the game and tries to talk to her but she snubs him. Shorty confronts the both of them, but she ignores him again, leading him to call her a trick and leave.
Phyllis talks to Barbara, telling her Shorty was actually guilty which Barbara was suspicious of in the first place. Barbara tells Phyllis that she “invents people”, imagining people she meets to be different than they are, which she has now pushed upon Shorty, intervening in his life and involving Barbara needlessly. Phyllis goes to get drunk at a sport bar and when walking home, sees Shorty ripping a 40 of O-Dogg on her stoop. She chastises him for being a liar and a lowlife, telling him she stuck her neck out for him. He asks if he can rejoin the team and she lunges at him but falls over. He tries to share his 40 but she declines. He confesses that Cheryl had gotten hit by a guy and Shorty went to confront him, the guy pulled out a gun causing Shorty to do the same. Shorty took a shot and missed but was nabbed by the police. He says he was scared he was going to get shot. Phyllis asks if this guy is still out to get Shorty but Shorty says he doesn’t care, he’s mad Cheryl played him and he no longer has the team. He begs to be back on the team but Phyllis dismisses him poetically. She goes inside, leaving him out there.
On the bus to the championship game at Madison Square Garden, Busy asks Phyllis if she’s leaving them after the game. She tells them to just focus on the game. Shorty is on the bus so it looks like he’s at least allowed to travel with them. In the locker room, Shorty apologizes to everyone for his behavior and they welcome him back into the fold lovingly. There is very dramatic string music playing during the game and the team is not playing their best. Phyllis calls a time-out and gives them a…rousing speech…bringing the team to realize that they’re a whole different team since the last time they played these guys and they need to show it. The team starts picking up steam and catches up. They’re down by two with 45 seconds left in the last quarter. They go to take a game-winning three-pointer but it’s blocked, the team losing by two points. God damn! I expected them to win because it’s a sports movie. Or at least tie and go into overtime and win then. Wow. Brave work here honestly.
Back in the locker room, the team is gutted. Phyllis is gutted too and sits silently with them. She speaks up and tells them how much she hates losing because she’s done it so often. She tells them that when you’re used to failure, it’s easy to dismiss everything you’ve accomplished on the journey. She states that she refuses to let them do that, and vows to bring them back next year to destroy that team, implying that she’s staying on as their coach. They ask about her restaurant and she says “screw it, I can’t even cook” which makes Shorty laugh. She tells them she needs them in summer school and in summer league and gives them a strict practice schedule to focus and push themselves to be great. She tells them she expects them to all go to college, not for basketball but for life. She tells them to leave proud because they’re good people and deserve good lives. She compliments them and tells them she loves them. The team expresses their gratitude for her and the fact that she’s staying on, and more or less that she believes in them. They begin to rap their pre-game chant and Phyllis joins in.
Outside MSG, Phyllis asks Shorty what he’s going to do now and he says he’ll be alright and hugs her, saying he’ll see her around. She once again tells him to pull his pants up and flip his hat around, something she had said to him the whole movie, and they part ways as an Onyx song about the movie plays, and that’s our movie.
Honestly this was great. The white savior bullshit was at a minimum for this kind of movie and Fredro Starr was fantastic. This one is for sure dated but I’d definitely recommend it whether you like basketball or not. I’m not sure if this had a big box office draw, but I’m pretty surprised at how low of a Rotten Tomatoes score it has. This is a Danny DeVito production starring Rhea Perlman here, people! How are we not shouting praises for this one from the rafters? Truthfully you need to see this if you haven’t and if you have, see it again. It’s finally streaming for free on Tubi after having been paywalled for years so take advantage of it while you can. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.