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Based on Jason Miller's stage play (, "That Championship Season" focuses on four high school heroes. Phil (Sorvino), James (Keach), George (Dern) and Tom (Sheen) have moved on but not forward with their lives. They're still the golden boys who went from underdogs to basketball champs. As they gather at their coach's (Mitchum) house after their 20 year high school reunion, all the bitterness masked by the memory of their glorious victory emerges. They proceed to let open old wounds and betray confidences they've kept about each other for years. ***

This remake of Miller's film works as well as the original. Stage plays (and their adaptions) are really about performance and director/writer/actor Jason Miller ("The Exorcist") managed to gather a talented ensemble cast that make the roles their own. While all the actors do marvelous jobs in their respective roles, Sheen steals the film in his sly performance as an alcoholic who comes to grips with the demons of the past that haunt him. He's the truthsayer of the film and his observations cut the deepest because they come from a place of acceptance. Sorvino (who ironically enough directed the television remake seventeen years later) also makes the most of his screen time as well. Dern's vunerability peeks beneath his performance as George. He's up for re-election as the town's mayor and needs all the mojo his friends can muster on his behalf because he's screwed up pretty badly.It's really the only job of note he's had. ***

This 1982 film has seen one other incarnation but Miller's adaptation remains definitive even if some of the material had to be cut for time consideration. Miller's play belongs to the same class as intense dramas such as Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" and is well suited to television. Sorvino makes the most of his The cast ---