Released to coincide with the conclusion of the actual NCAA championships back in 1997, The 6th Man combines ghost and sports themes with poor results. Mixing special effects we've all seen before with the clichéd coming-back-from-an-impossible-position-in-the-final finale that has about as much uplifting excitement as the last coming-back-from, etc, that we all probably saw less than a month ago, it has only a couple of well-acted scenes, and a good chemistry between screen brothers Marlon Wayans and Kadeem Hardison in the early scenes, to recommend it.
Marlon Wayans plays Kenny Tyler who, with his brother, Antoine (Kadeem Hardison,) form a formidable basketball partnership. Content to live in his flashy ball-hogging brother's shadow, Kenny suddenly finds himself thrust into the spotlight when Antoine dies unexpectedly, and soon finds himself struggling to perform. Only when Antoine returns in ghostly form do the Huskies team for which Kenny plays recover their old form and storm their way to the finals of the NCAA championship.
Despite realising from the outset that this movie is going to follow a strictly formulaic path the brother's coaching pop talks inspirational twaddle for the first five minutes, clearly marking himself out for an early grave the movie is surprisingly quite effective in the early scenes when it concentrates on establishing the relationship between the brothers, and Antoine's untimely death ("I'll come back", he promises prophetically). But, upon Antoine's return, the movie abandons any pretence of pathos to subject us to an hour of largely unfunny poltergeist-lite hi-jinks both on and off the baseball court. Only Kenny can see his dead brother, so we get plenty of scenes in which he hugs the air, or twists himself into tortuous shapes as he and Antoine fight, much to the bewilderment of his team-mates and largely redundant romantic interest (Michael Michele). Barely funny the first time, by the end of the movie Wayan's mugging (he seems to be doing a Will Smith impersonation through most of the movie) soon proves to be extremely irritating.
And Kenny and his mates are just a little late in finding the moral enlightenment to bar Antoine from helping them to win the championship by cheating. Getting to the final by having their ghostly sixth man stealing the ball from their competitors, or inhabiting their bodies, is fine it seems. But actually winning the final that way is a big no-no for some reason. Seems to me that when the revelation that, hey, cheating is wrong! finally sank into their thick skulls they would have forfeited the final as they shouldn't really have been there anyway. But this is a Hollywood movie, aimed at teens who, as every Hollywood producer knows, have no perceptive or critical faculties.
There are two or three good scenes in this movie, which is damning enough; even more perverse is the fact that they're all the ones that are played straight. The 'comedy' here just doesn't work at all.
Marlon Wayans plays Kenny Tyler who, with his brother, Antoine (Kadeem Hardison,) form a formidable basketball partnership. Content to live in his flashy ball-hogging brother's shadow, Kenny suddenly finds himself thrust into the spotlight when Antoine dies unexpectedly, and soon finds himself struggling to perform. Only when Antoine returns in ghostly form do the Huskies team for which Kenny plays recover their old form and storm their way to the finals of the NCAA championship.
Despite realising from the outset that this movie is going to follow a strictly formulaic path the brother's coaching pop talks inspirational twaddle for the first five minutes, clearly marking himself out for an early grave the movie is surprisingly quite effective in the early scenes when it concentrates on establishing the relationship between the brothers, and Antoine's untimely death ("I'll come back", he promises prophetically). But, upon Antoine's return, the movie abandons any pretence of pathos to subject us to an hour of largely unfunny poltergeist-lite hi-jinks both on and off the baseball court. Only Kenny can see his dead brother, so we get plenty of scenes in which he hugs the air, or twists himself into tortuous shapes as he and Antoine fight, much to the bewilderment of his team-mates and largely redundant romantic interest (Michael Michele). Barely funny the first time, by the end of the movie Wayan's mugging (he seems to be doing a Will Smith impersonation through most of the movie) soon proves to be extremely irritating.
And Kenny and his mates are just a little late in finding the moral enlightenment to bar Antoine from helping them to win the championship by cheating. Getting to the final by having their ghostly sixth man stealing the ball from their competitors, or inhabiting their bodies, is fine it seems. But actually winning the final that way is a big no-no for some reason. Seems to me that when the revelation that, hey, cheating is wrong! finally sank into their thick skulls they would have forfeited the final as they shouldn't really have been there anyway. But this is a Hollywood movie, aimed at teens who, as every Hollywood producer knows, have no perceptive or critical faculties.
There are two or three good scenes in this movie, which is damning enough; even more perverse is the fact that they're all the ones that are played straight. The 'comedy' here just doesn't work at all.