Best Shot

Given the enduring popularity of the basketball movie Hoosiers -- ESPN experts and fans alike named it the best sports film of the past 25 years in 2004, and a special-edition DVD set reached stores the following year -- the disrespect afforded its original score is surprising, especially given the reputation of composer Jerry Goldsmith. But at the time of this writing, Hoosiers had never been issued on CD in the U.S. -- the only legal alternative available to consumers is the U.K. edition, retitled Best Shot (presumably because no one outside of North America knows just what a Hoosier is). Although inspired by the true-life underdog triumph of the 1954 Milan, IN, high school team, Goldsmith's score forgoes period instrumentation and Americana arrangements in favor of overbearing synthesizers that date the film's production squarely to the mid-'80s. The music certainly has its strengths: Goldsmith's oft-repeated but triumphant main theme boasts the structural invention and lyricism that are the composer's hallmarks, and he accurately evokes the rhythms and intensity of the hardwood game. Still, the sheer melodic repetition grows tiresome, and the incongruous electronics have as aged poorly as the short shorts worn by the players onscreen.