Wildcats

For all her dippy onscreen image, Goldie Hawn’s been thoughtfully creating a certain kind of movie for the last few years. Her theme is very simple: A woman survives on her own.

She’s had differing degrees of success with this, from the effective laughs of Private Benjamin and Best Friends to the flat Protocol and the misbegotten Swing Shift. But Hawn, who also produces her own films, is serious about presenting a specific image, of woman who isn’t a victim, who takes care of her business, who lives independently. That image, if not the quality of the films, has been consistent.

Hawn is smart enough not to belabor her theme. Her movies are comedies, and she generally delivers the comedic goods, which, of course, makes it much easier to get her message across. Wildcats continues this direction, and improves upon it. It’s her best vehicle in years, and she’ll probably have a nice strong hit with it.

This time out, Goldie plays a high-school track coach with a hankering to coach the boys’ football team. Unheard of, naturally, but she does draw an assignment – as a joke, she’s given the reins of the tough Central High Wildcats football squad.

It isn’t quite what she was expecting. Most of Central’s players appear to be involved in various forms of, shall we say, the inner-city wholesale business. She’s greeted in the locker room by an abrupt anatomical salute and a series of rude sound effects.

Eventually, as you’ve no doubt guessed, she wins the players’ support by getting tougher than them. You’ve probably also guessed that the Wildcats turn their losing ways around and win a few games.

That’s all conventional enough. The unconventional part is that Hawn plays this off the subplot of her character’s ex-husband (James Keach) wanting custody of their two daughters, because of the disreputable influence of the coaching job. Or something. Anyway, he interrupted a beer bash after the Wildcats’ first win, saw a bunch of hoodlums boogying in his old house, and got his neck out of joint.

Most of this is welded together adequately by director Michael Ritchie (The Bad News Bears, The Survivors), although some things don’t make all that much sense – for instance, exactly why the character of Hawn’s sister (Swoosie Kurtz) is in the movie. She’s extraneous.

Ritchie doesn’t dwell on the nonsensical stuff, which is all to the good. Instead, we get some acceptable humor, most of which surrounds Hawn’s slow-burn reactions to the antics of the football team. (They have their own high-school version of William “The Refrigerator” Perry.) She chews a few heads off, too, which gives her a chance to prove herself spunky-as-nails.

Hawn, of course, proves herself in more ways than one here; with Wildcats, she cements her position as one of Hollywood’s more reliable star-producers. In the bargain, she’s turning into one of our better actresses. She downplays big histrionics, but establishing an image of capability and humorousness are just as difficult, and probably just as meaningful. She’s getting her message across, all right.

First published in The Herald, February 13, 1986

That anatomical salute might not be something that flies in the culture of the 21st century, and seemed a little weird even at the time. I don’t remember this as an especially good outing for either Hawn or Ritchie, but the film is notable for its supporting cast, led by Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson (first movie for both), but also including Bruce McGill, Jan Hooks, Mykelti Williamson, and Nipsey Russell. Also: name-checkin’ The Fridge, a quintessentially ’80s thing to do. I recall seeing Goldie on a talk show the week the movie was coming out, and she noted that two football movies were opening on the same day, one starring her and one starring Kurt Russell. The host – it was probably Letterman – asked her which one people should go see if they could only see one, and she thought for a moment, and sincerely admitted that it should probably be Kurt’s movie. That was The Best of Times, and she was right.