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What: “That Championship Season”

Where: Showtime

When: Sunday, 8 p.m.

This two-hour remake of a 1982 film and a 1972 Broadway play features powerful acting with cut-to-the-bone emotion. The play won the New York Drama Critics’ Award as the best play of the 1971-72 season, a Tony and a Pulitzer for drama. The story, by Jason Miller, is about a 20-year reunion of a high school basketball team from Scranton, Pa., that, against all odds, won a state championship.

Except for the opening scene, in which four of the five starters on the Fillmore High team are welcomed back at a rally at the school, the plot unfolds at the coach’s home. The coach and his four players are not a likable lot.

Phil Romano, expertly played by Vincent D’Onofrio, is Scranton’s wealthiest man and possibly its most corrupt. George Sitkowski (Tony Shalhoub) is Scranton’s mayor. In exchange for campaign contributions, he has given Phil access to the town’s resources. And Phil, we learn, also had an affair with George’s wife.

The other two players are the Daley brothers, James (Terry Kinney) and Tom (Gary Sinise, who is also the executive producer). James is the principal of a junior high whose self-pity is exceeded only by his ruthless ambition. Tom, who got out of Scranton years before, is an alcoholic and the least despicable of the four. He is crude but honest.

The coach is played by Paul Sorvino, who is also the director. He played Phil in the play and the original movie.

Coach is an archconservative, a virulent anti-Semite and a bigot whose heroes include Sen. Joe McCarthy.

One of the more emotional scenes--the film is packed with them--involves a confrontation between a drunken Tom and Coach. Tom tells Coach he is a phony and that he had to cheat to win the championship game, and that’s why the fifth member of the team, Martin, the star, never comes to a reunion. Tom accuses Coach of instructing Martin to injure the star of the opposing team with an elbow. “You told Martin to take out that [racial slur],” Tom charges.

But just when things at the reunion appear to be coming totally apart, Coach puts on an old record of the last moments of the team’s big victory, and everybody shifts gears. It all becomes a little too tidy, but the acting is tremendous and Miller’s writing is worthy of its honors. The amazing thing is, in the end, you actually feel compassion for this group of losers who cannot let go of their one collective moment of glory.