Sunset Park

Danny DeVito is credited as one of the producers of "Sunset Park," which stars his wife Rhea Perlman (best known as wise-cracking Carla, the acerbic barmaid on the long-running TV sitcom "Cheers"). So, you might expect the film to be something subversive and satirical, something with an edge, something that is at least off the beaten path.

But, sadly, "Sunset Park" reveals itself quite quickly as a conventional inner-city-kids-make-good yarn, set against the backdrop of high school basketball. And, except for the steady stream of profane and vulgar dialogue, it might have made a predictably tepid "Afterschool Special."

As it is, this is "Stand and Deliver" dumbed down, or perhaps a more intellectual "Mighty Ducks."

Perlman plays Phyllis Saroka, a veteran teacher (or perhaps a counselor; it's never made clear) at Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn, who dreams of opening a restaurant in the Virgin Islands. But her dream evaporates when she discovers her boyfriend has moved out and left her high and dry - and worse, he's stolen her VCR and stereo.

One day, she sees on the bulletin board a solicitation for an extra-curricular basketball coach to guide the school's floundering team, and she grabs it - strictly for the overtime.

The only problem is that the short, frizzy-haired white woman (someone shouts from the stands, "She's like a Chia Pet!") doesn't have a clue about the game of basketball, and she's not too hip to the problems of the members of her all-black team, either.

Early on she gets some guidance from Shorty (Fredro Starr, of the rap group Onyx), a member of the team who knows his way around the court. They strike up a friendship and she comes to rely on him, but it isn't long before Shorty is embroiled in problems of his own and needs her to be his coach, not his buddy.

Other members of the team include the usual mix - Busy Bee (De'Aundre Bonds), a geek in thick glasses who has loads of energy but doesn't know how to direct it when he's playing; Butter (James Harris), the team's big guy who seems obsessed with girls' body parts; Spaceman (Terrence Da-Shon Howard), a pot-smoking freak who is wild and undisciplined; Drano (Antwon Tanner), who follows the crowd; Andre (Anthony Hall), who is angry and short-fused; and Kurt (Shawn Michael Howard), who is completely lacking in motivation and afraid to take a shot from the floor.

All are good players but, lacking any sort of guidance, they've become rowdy hotshots and don't function as a team. So it's up to Phyllis to put aside her selfish, monetary-motivated reasons for coaching and help them pull together, overcome individual problems and win a few games. As the film progresses, they do even better than that, managing a winning streak that takes them to the city championship finals in Madison Square Garden.

All of the performances are quite good here, with Starr particularly notable. And Perlman shows she can hold her own as the central character in a big-screen film (though Carol Kane, as her best friend, is utterly wasted).

But the script, by TV writers Seth Zvi Rosenfeld and Kathleen McGhee-Anderson, lets him down - along with everyone else - giving him wild mood swings in his character motivation and down-the-line predictability. And director Steve Gomer, whose debut film "Fly By Night" won a prize at the Sundance Film Festival a few years ago, disappoints by taking such a mundane project and failing to inject any new life into it.

At least if the characters had been richer or more interesting it would be worth a look. As it is, you're better off waiting for the video . . . which should be coming along quite soon.

"Sunset Park" is rated R for violence, profanity, vulgarity and drug abuse (marijuana smoking).