[Inspector Abberline]

Slap Shot 1977 George Roy Hill,
I remember back in the giddy days of the VHS /betamax wars (kids today don't know there born,there was no such thing as netflix or downloads, I had to walk 5 miles to the nearest video rental emporium)When I rented the film Film Rollerball,with its cover of James Caan wearing a crash helmet and waving a spiked glove in my face,I assumed it was gonna be wall to wall mad max style carnage,er I was wrong,the actual rollerball scenes themselves were well done but didn't make up for the ponderous navel gazing Rollerball is used to control the populace by demonstrating the futility of individuality as quoted,yeah right.Slap Shot on the other hand not only dishes out the violence in spades but does;nt trying to figure out why people like to beat the crap out of each while wielding a bloody great stick (we know why because its fun)It just then shows us that in between the violence is drinking,sex more drinking and even more sex.
Written by Nancy Dowd and inspired by her brother Ned Dowd who played minor League hockey,Ned also appears in the film as notorious Ogie Ogelthorpe.The film easily swings from drama to comedy to violence to unadulterated debauchery.
Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) has to steer his hockey team thru the Federal League but the owner Joe McGrath (Strother Martin) wants to close the team at the end of the season.So bring in the Hanson Bros who basically fight there way thru matches and when there not playing hockey there playing with there toy cars.With a menageries of misfit characters and Porky style shenanigans there's no need to be sports fan or a hockey enthusiast ,if only they could make real sport this interesting.