Editing Slap Shot (section)

==Reception==
''Slap Shot'' was a moderate hit upon release, grossing $28,000,000 during its theater run, which placed it at #21 among movies released in 1977 and well below the receipts of Paul Newman's three previous wide-release films: ''[[The Towering Inferno]]'', ''[[The Sting]]'' and ''[[Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid]]'', which all grossed over $100 million.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Actor&id=paulnewman.htm&sort=date&order=DESC&p=.htm |title=Paul Newman Movie Box Office Results |website=Box Office Mojo |access-date=July 28, 2019 |archive-date=August 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821160507/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Actor&id=paulnewman.htm&sort=date&order=DESC&p=.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>

Reviews were mixed and ranged from [[Rex Reed]] writing in [[New York Daily News|''The Daily News'']] that it was “violent, bloody and thoroughly revolting,” to ''[[Newsweek]]''<nowiki/>'s assertion that the film was “tough, smart, cynical and sentimental—the key ingredients in our new pop populism.”<ref name=":0" />

''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' wrote that "director George Roy Hill is ambivalent on the subject of violence in professional ice hockey. Half the time Hill invites the audience to get off on the mayhem, the other half of the time he decries it. You can't really have it both ways and this compromise badly mars the handsomely made Universal release, produced by Robert Wunsch and Stephen Friedman."<ref>{{cite news| title=Film Reviews: Slap Shot |url=https://variety.com/1976/film/reviews/slap-shot-1200423918/ |magazine=Variety |date=March 2, 1977 |page=22}}</ref> [[Vincent Canby]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' described the performances as "impeccable" and thought the film had "a kind of vitality to it” but found it "unfunny" and noted an "ambiguous" point of view with regard to violence. <ref>{{cite news |first=Vincent |last=Canby |date=February 26, 1977 |title=Hot Time on Ice, Newman's 'Slap Shot' |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/26/archives/hot-time-on-ice-newmans-slap-shot.html |access-date=July 14, 2024}}</ref>

[[Kevin Thomas (film critic)|Kevin Thomas]] of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' was negative, writing that since the "characters possess so little dimension and since we have so little opportunity to get to know and therefore care about them, their incessantly brutalizing behavior and talk can only seem exploitative in effect. What's more, in playing for laughs, ''Slap Shot'' gives the nasty impression of seeming to patronize both the players and their fans."<ref>Thomas, Kevin (February 25, 1977). "'Slap Shot' on Thin Ice". ''Los Angeles Times''. Part IV, p. 1, 21.</ref> Gary Arnold of ''[[The Washington Post]]'' wrote "''Slap Shot'' comes at you like a boisterous drunk. At first glance it appears harmlessly funny in an extravagantly foul-mouthed sort of way. However, there's a mean streak beneath the cartoon surface that makes one feel uneasy about humoring this particular drunk for too long."<ref>Arnold, Gary (April 1, 1977). "'Slap Shot': Rowdy". ''The Washington Post''. B1.</ref> [[Tom Milne]] of ''[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' described it as "a film which, while deploring the incidence of violence in sport, does everything it possibly can to make the audience wallow in that violence."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Milne |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Milne |date=August 1977 |title=Slap Shot |journal=[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]] |volume=44 |issue=523 |page=175 }}</ref>

[[Gene Siskel]] gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four in his original print review, writing that "what ''Slap Shot'' does to its ultimate failure is exaggerate every one of its fine facets. It's as if those locker room tape recordings had been edited to remove the silences and banalities to include only the most outrageous sex-and-violence. And regrettably, 'Slap Shot' moralizes about violence in its tacked-on, whipsaw ending. This, after filling the screen with nonstop mayhem."<ref>Siskel, Gene (March 28, 1977). "'Slap Shot': Mayhem on Ice". ''[[Chicago Tribune]]''. Section 2, p. 5.</ref> Years later he said, "My initial review was mixed and then I saw it two weeks later, thankfully, and I knew it was a terrific film."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://calgaryherald.com/sports/hockey/eric-francis-iconic-slap-shot-movie-celebrates-40-years |title=Slap Shot, the only good hockey movie ever made, celebrates 40 years |last=Francis |first=Eric |date=February 9, 2017 |newspaper=[[Calgary Herald]] |access-date=December 5, 2018 |archive-date=April 27, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427221554/https://calgaryherald.com/sports/hockey/eric-francis-iconic-slap-shot-movie-celebrates-40-years |url-status=live }}</ref> He included it among the runners-up on his year-end list of the 10 best films of 1977, explaining that "the more I saw it, the more I liked it."<ref>Siskel, Gene (January 1, 1978). "'Annie Hall' gives a laughing lift to year of space races". ''Chicago Tribune''. Section 6, p. 2.</ref>

''[[The Wall Street Journal]]''{{'}}s Joy Gould Boyum seemed at once entertained and repulsed by a movie so "foul-mouthed and unabashedly vulgar" on one hand and so "vigorous and funny" on the other.<ref name= "SI"/> Michael Ontkean's strip tease displeased ''Time'''s critic [[Richard Schickel]], who regretted that "in the dénouement [Ontkean] is forced to go for a broader, cheaper kind of comic response."<ref name="SI"/> Despite the mixed reviews, the film won the [[Hochi Film Award]] for Best International Film.

[[Pauline Kael]] in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' was mixed, writing that "I don't know that I've ever seen a picture so completely geared to giving the public 'what it wants' with such an antagonistic feeling behind it. Hill gets you laughing, all right but he's so grimly determined to ram entertainment down your throat that you feel like a [[Foie gras|Strasbourg goose]]." However, she praised Newman for giving "the performance of his life—to date."<ref>{{cite book |title=When the Lights Go Down |url=https://archive.org/details/1980-when-the-lights-go-down-pauline-kael/1980_-_When_the_Lights_Go_Down_Pauline_Kael/page/274/mode/2up?q=newman |last=Kael |first=Pauline |pages=274–278 |year=1980 |publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston |isbn=978-0-0304-2511-0}}</ref>