‘That Championship Season’ Scores Again

Gathered for a reunion, a retired high school basketball coach is attempting to whip several of his former players back into shape.

These men--state champions 20 years ago--are America, in the coach’s eyes.

But they have grown soft and self-indulgent, and, fueled by the evening’s liquor, they are fighting among themselves.

“Never take less than success,” he urges, not realizing that his win-at-all-costs philosophy--and the casual chauvinism and prejudice that came along with it--is what is hurting these men, and all of America.

When Jason Miller’s “That Championship Season” emerged in 1972, its subtext spoke volumes to a nation made cynical by Vietnam and the unfolding Watergate melodrama. In a slightly updated film version that debuts Sunday on Showtime, it still communicates powerfully--pointing up the ugliness of bigotry even as it extols patriotism, friendship and forgiveness.

Seeking to better a failed 1982 film version, Paul Sorvino--who got a career boost from performing in the original stage production--pretty much willed this TV movie into existence.

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He directed and co-stars, shifting from his original role--the spoiled, rich-guy player--to the indomitable coach. Miller tweaked the script, adding a new opening and updating some of the references.

The result is very much a “filmed play,” its action confined almost entirely to the coach’s Victorian mausoleum of a home.

Though momentum lulls occasionally, fine acting keeps powering things along.

Barking aphorisms and administering tough love, Sorvino is like a field general who’s putting up a brave front as he faces mutiny by his body, his players and his country.

Taking over Sorvino’s old part, Vincent D’Onofrio is a flashy, smirking wisenheimer speeding toward trouble.

As the drunk whose booze-loosened tongue speaks harsh truths, Gary Sinise is so weary of the world that he can’t even muster contempt for it.

As his hard-working but always overlooked brother, Terry Kinney is a raw, weeping wound.

And playing against type, Tony Shalhoub is a onetime golden boy baffled by life’s habit of slipping through one’s fingers.

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* “That Championship Season” debuts Sunday at 8 p.m. on Showtime. The network has rated it TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14).