SUNSET PARK begins in the morning - subway cars slide into stations, bodegas roll open for business, inner-city students pass through metal detectors on their way to class. Rhea Perlman (y'know, Carla from "Cheers") bounces along the street to the upbeat rap soundtrack on her way to teach some of those classes.

Get the picture? Well, let's add in a scene where Perlman's character (Phyllis Saroka) confesses she's had enough of this school and has stashed a nest egg she wants to use to buy a restaurant in St. Croix. Next scene she finds out the basketball coach quit and the job offers pay above and beyond what she's getting. And now we see the Sunset Park High School basketball team (who went 2 and 17 in the preceding season) emerge from the locker room and Rhea Perlman saying, "Hi, I'm Miss Saroka. I'm your new coach."

Got the picture now? It's not too hard since this movie has been made a thousand times, with different sports and different settings. And frankly, if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all. So what sets this movie apart from the rest?

Is it the quality of the performances? No. At their first scrimmage, a heckler in the stands shouts to the team, "Your coach looks like a Chia Pet." Unfortunately, Perlman acts like a Chia Pet, too. But it wasn't all her fault. The lines she was handed were stiff and crumbly as breadsticks and in contrast to the natural flow of the students' American Black Vernacular. The script favored Perlman only when it called upon her to hurl expletives. Fredro Starr, who plays Shorty, the central character among the students, is pretty good, though.

Is it the comedy? No. TriStar describes SUNSET PARK as "a poignant comedy," which simply means it could have been funnier than it actually is. The laughs *did* accumulate as the movie progressed, but that was because people began laughing *at* the movie in an equal proportion to laughing *with* the movie. A prime scene for that was when Shorty asks the coach, "What's it like to be white?" Don't get me wrong. There are some funny scenes and lines in the movie. But comedy is simply not the prime motivation.

Is it the set of characters - those kids with the wacky personalities and the big dreams whom you come to know and love? Not really, though this is one of the stronger points of the movie. Most of the kids are likable, funny and distinct. Unfortunately, many of them are left undeveloped.

Is it the setting? Well, I don't recall any students being shot or arrested in Goldie Hawn's WILDCATS or the TV show "The White Shadow." But this is hardly justification.

Was there anything unusual about this movie at all? Well, it was kind of amusing to see Rhea Perlman start off totally clueless and interested only in her paycheck. When her team's performance against another school humiliates her, then she has the kids teach her the game and how to coach. And that was unusual, too. The ending of the city-wide championship was also not what I expected, but it only served to motivate the all-too-predictable resolution. (If you want to know what I'm talking about here, e-mail me.)

SUNSET PARK isn't the worst movie made in this genre. It's perfectly acceptable as far as these movies go. But it is so firmly seated in the genre, I would wait for the video rather than go to the box office.

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