Cinema: Some People to Root for

ONE ON ONE

Directed by LAMONT JOHNSON Screenplay by ROBBY BENSON and JERRY SEGAL

Amidst all the hot, heavy air billowing forth from the movie capital this summer—a vain effort to blow some life into the uncommon number of overweight turkeys that are dying for want of public sympathy—One on One comes on like a sudden breeze off a lake.

The amazing thing about the picture is that it works at all, since it is composed, for the most part, of painfully familiar material. At the climax, the hero actually comes off the bench and...