Le tremplin du vertige

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the movie on Paramount video cassette.

"Diving In" is a preposterous but entertaining sports film about would-be Olympic divers. Released theatrically by Skouras, it should generate some greenbacks for Paramount in video release.

Casting of Burt Young as the high school diving team coach hints at the cliches to come in yet another "Rocky"-inspired battle against the odds. Unfortunately, scripter Eric Edson has concocted some ridiculous motivations and untimely plot twists that reduce an otherwise competent production to silliness.

Matt Adler is the prototypical underdog who wants to prove himself as a diver to defeat Young's arrogant protege Matt Lattanzi but is afraid of the high platform. He gets girls' swimming coach Yolanda Jilot (a European beauty) to train him after hours at her home, with the expected May/December romantic overtones.

So far so good, but Edson piles on the melodrama to ill effect. Not only is Adler running against Lattanzi for class president, but Adler's beautiful sister Kristy Swanson is sexually abused by the oversexed Lattanzi at a party, and her honor needs avenging.

As if this weren't enough, at the last minute Jilot brings in ace coach Richard Johnson (a comeback for the distinguished British actor) as Adler's tutor. At the state championship swimming meet, Adler is way behind when suddenly Johnson concocts a tough dive on the spot, asks the boy to do it and gets the judges to arbitrarily assign a 3.6 degree of difficulty. Adler nails it and is the victor.

Cast of hunks and 10s does a fine job, and pic benefits from a quite liberal PG-13 rating that includes a surprising number of nude scenes. Jilot in particular is convincing as an athlete, and elsewhere the cutaways to doubles for diving footage are well handled.