Slap Shot (1977)

I have never watched an entire hockey game in my life, nor had I watched a movie that concerns hockey principally. I don't recall who recommended this one. But I trusted that it would be easy to follow with even a rudimentary knowledge of the sport. Indeed, the first scene clarifies a few terms that hockey fans probably know well.

Under near-retirement Coach Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman), the fictitious Charlestown Chiefs are the least successful NHL team. Then the manager (Strother Martin) recruits three young brothers (David Hanson, Steve Carlson, and Jeff Carlson) who look like wimpy dorks but play with a super-bellicose style that garners wins despite frequent penalties. Reggie decides to have the team in general adopt a policy of aggression, which makes them popular with their hometown and pretty much no one else. Only the star player (Michael Ontkean) declines. Can the Chiefs save themselves from dissolution?

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

Looks like this is my first boxing movie viewing in two and a half years. Can't say I missed the subgenre, but this one has a little something extra to interest me: basis on the life of a real boxer I'd already heard of. Not that I could have told you anything else about him.

Rocco "Rocky" Barbello (Paul Newman) is a fairly violent Brooklyn thief. Fellow con Frankie (Robert Loggia) suggests that he box for money. Rocky does so only in desperation, adopting the last name "Graziano" to hide his criminal record. Once he realizes how far he can go without losing a match, he learns to love it. But his past threatens to catch up to him, particularly when Frankie tries bribery and then blackmail to get him to take a dive.

Road to Perdition (2002)

This is one of those rare times that I allow myself to review a re-viewing because I'd mostly forgotten the first viewing. I have a friend (also a bit relevantly forgetful) to thank for convincing me to give it another go, as well as for helping me understand and appreciate what was happening.

In peak Al Capone-era Chicago, 12-year-old Michael Sullivan, Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) knows that his father, Mike (Tom Hanks), has a dangerous job but gets curious about the unstated details, so he stows away in the car one night. Mike turns out to be a debt collector for the Irish Mob under John Rooney (Paul Newman), and Michael sees John's hotheaded son Connor (Daniel Craig, attempting a U.S. accent again) commit a murder even John wouldn't approve. Fearing that Michael won't keep his promise not to talk and resentful of Mike winning John's favor, Connor attempts to kill, directly or indirectly, the entire local Sullivan family, ironically missing only the two most important targets. Mike plans to take Michael to a relative in the fictitious town of Perdition, Michigan (modeled after Hell, Michigan?), but first he wants to neutralize the Rooneys' pursuing threat, possibly with Capone's aid via the one other real gangster mentioned, Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci).

The Verdict (1982)

On the rare occasions that I watch a movie again, I usually don't bother to review it here. But this was a still rarer occasion: I had basically no memory of it. Only the ending even remotely rang a bell. Good thing I remembered enjoying it years ago.

Frank Galvin (late-middle-aged Paul Newman), a discredited lawyer who spends more time on drinking and pinball than cases, finally gets a good opportunity via a friend (Jack Warden). A hospital has left a woman comatose, allegedly through an anesthetic procedure botched by negligence. Everyone, including Frank, expects him to accept on the family's behalf a pretty generous settlement; but after seeing the patient himself, he decides he'd rather try to expose their malpractice. This is not easy, because the doctors and their lawyers are far more renowned -- and can fight dirty.