The Basket

Buried neck-deep in painfully trite platitudes, The Basket's story of a German brother and sister, World War I refugees in a rural Washington farm community where they're not at all welcome, is interwoven with a plot revolving around the town's boys learning the then-novel game of basketball from their easygoing new school teacher (Peter Coyote), who has a dark past. Bogged down by war orphan, one room schoolhouse and general store clichés, pretty wheat field vistas (accompanied by a flag-waving score), stereotypically mischievous teenagers in caps and short pants (and even a barn fire with a kid trapped inside, for crying out loud), this sappy, spiritless, slow movie has its heart in the right place, but is absolute agony to sit through. Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)