Some People to Root for

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

ONE ON ONE

Directed by LAMONT JOHNSON Screenplay by ROBBY BENSON and JERRY SEGAL

Amidst all the hot, heavy air billowing forth from the movie capital this summer--a vain effort to blow some life into the uncommon number of overweight turkeys that are dying for want of public sympathy--One on One comes on like a sudden breeze off a lake.

The amazing thing about the picture is that it works at all, since it is composed, for the most part, of painfully familiar material. At the climax, the hero actually comes off the bench and wins the Big Game. Yes, this is a sports film, the subject being big-time college basketball. Yes, it demonstrates once again that amidst all the pious talk about amateur ideals, colleges pay off their stars under the table and exploit them just dreadfully. With that much of the banal plot laid out, it perhaps hardly needs to be added that the hero (Robby Benson, who wrote the script with his father, Jerry Segal) starts out as an absurdly innocent freshman. Slowly he becomes aware of the wicked ways of the world, refuses to join in the general cynicism, and emerges from the struggle with his ideals intact and this terrific girl, who has been a big help to him through it all, on his arm.

At best, fairy-tale stuff, but there is such a sweet, pleasant air about the enterprise. Everyone concerned works so earnestly and professionally to bring it off that it manages to transcend its inherent banalities. Those who deserve the largest share of the credit are Director Johnson, a solid pro who has done good work on the action circuit, and his three leading players. Johnson has a sure hand with the sports stuff; his games and practices are hard-charging and harsh-breathing. They provide an energetic contrast to the romantic sequences, which do not go mushy, and the didactic ones, which a sound sense of irony prevents from going preachy.

Hot-Dog. As the young jock fighting to overcome shortness of stature, a tendency to hotdog, and a blank-slate mind, Benson gives an engaging performance, sweet without being cloying. As the "older woman"--a senior who is hired by the athletics department to tutor him--Annette O'Toole has the film's best tough talk to handle, and her verbal style contrasts piquantly with her fresh, natural good looks. Finally, there is G.D. Spradlin as the martinet coach to consider. He is not so much a molder of men as a stamp press, mean and implacable. The role may be overwritten, but Spradlin underplays it beautifully. It is no joke going one on one with him for possession of your own soul. The conflict of wills between him and Benson--though it may be implausible in some of its details--is just the kind of dumb confrontation an eager kid and a rigid systemaniac can stumble into.

One on One is a picture that, not unlike Rocky, transcends its humble conception and develops what movie people used to call a "rooting interest" in its characters. That's an old, low trick, but one that has been too long lost at the movies.

Richard Schickel

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