He Got Game (1998)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Don't Believe the Hype

A Masterpiece!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Released for a week from prison in a shady deal in which he has to convince his son to sign with a particular university, the father of a basketball prodigy struggles to reconnect with his teenage children in this Spike Lee drama. While basketball is a prominent theme and the film opens with majestic shots of various kids poetically playing the game, this is less a sports movie and more a study of estranged relationships with Denzel Washington and Ray Allen having close to equal screen time as father and son respectfully. Allen is nowhere near as polished an actor as Washington, but he has a nicely complex character, torn between offers from various universities, the wishes of his girlfriend, a desire to take responsibility for his sister and lots of resentment towards his father. Lee also admirably avoids spelling out Washington's criminal conviction until partway in, which gives us a chance to gradually warm to his character before discovering his heinous past actions. The film runs a little long with a subplot involving a hooker next door that could have been omitted completely; the ending is also a tad too maudlin for its own good. The vast majority of the film tugs on the right emotional strings though and together with some awesome music and excellent camera-work as per Lee par, this is a compelling watch regardless of one's interest in the sport of basketball.

He Got Game is a very enjoyable film. The cinematography is top drawer and the dialog crisply written. The movie explores the moral conflicts surrounding a prospective college basketball player. As soon as various interests decided that he is worth something to them, they pull all the stops on recruiting him to their school. Ray Allen plays the college prospect, Jesus, and Denzel Washington plays his convict father Jay. Ray and Jake are estranged after Jake accidentally kills his wife and Jesus's mother in a moment of passion. Now Jake must balance a release from prison against doing what is best for his Jay. Milla Jovavich and Rosario Dawson add to the fine cast.Many may shy away because it is a Spike Lee film, but the movie isn't a sermon about race relations. It is about a young man being treated as a commodity by family, friends, and strangers. It is worth your time.

This movie tried to tell a story about one black basketball player's life by trying to put every possible conflict rolled in one. It didn't work. This movie was an eyesore. The music was very good. However, the plot wasn't. The movie was misogynist. The only good women were the immediate relatives. All other women were portrayed as just users and objects. The girl friend of the basketball star (Ray Allen) was not seen sympathetically at all. She was just there for him. The message was she had no hopes and dreams of her own, other than to be around the basketball star.The part about the basketball star going to the white college and having white women fall all over and have orgasms is nonsense. Black basketball players have to be careful, because there are lots of women out to scream sexual assault, etc. And even the most self-disrespecting women wouldn't just automatically fall all over a black basketball player, even if he were Michael Jordan.The most ridiculous thing was when Denzel Washington's character returns home and his son doesn't trust him. At first, one thinks "okay, forgive the father". Then, you find out that the father accidentally killed his wife in a fit of rage. Okay, I know lots of people who are mad at their father about things less than that. You can't tell me that a son wouldn't want to have nothing to do with the father after this incident.Then there was the Hispanic drug dealer. Was he working with the City Of New York? He's driving around the basketball star telling him every sin that is out there. That doesn't sound like a street smart drug dealer, looking out for his interests. That sounds like someone hired to give a young man a lecture.I am sorry that this film was destroyed by all this. There was a lot of good in the film that was marred by all this. For example, life is very hard. The song by Public Enemy at the end was probably the best way too summarize about the hardship of life in Brooklyn. I think that Spike Lee was trying to be like Scorsese, but not the Scorsese of Mean Streets. Mean Streets was Scorsese's debut masterpiece. He Got Game was more like the mediocre and overrated Taxi Driver. The movie wandered all over the place trying to make a moral point, but failing at every turn.

The director, Spike Lee, has got talent. No question about it. He stylizes the film with momentary flashbacks and slow motion -- but just enough. Not so much as to interfere with the narrative or attract attention to the director. And the photography, as is usual in his films, is truly splendid. Coney Island never looked quite so inviting, at least not for the last fifty years or so.The story -- the best high school basketball player being tempted with all sorts of material benefits to sign up for prestigious schools -- gives Lee a chance to indulge his fascination with basketball. I must admit that basketball never fascinated me. When I was a kid there was nothing but baseball. But, now, it seems that instant gratification trumps patience. Who wants to wait for the pitcher to dig his cleated shoe into the mound, remove his hat and wipe the sweat from his brow, acknowledge signals from the catcher, glance at first base, the wind up, the pitch, the call -- yawn. Basketball is all motion by regulation.Still, "White Men Can't Jump" was a pretty good movie about basketball. And "He Got Game" doesn't have that much basketball in it, and nothing at all that's technical. It's chiefly a story of Ray Allen, who must choose a lesser school or see his father (Denzel Washington) go back to Attica. And it's the story of the relationship between Washington, who accidentally offed his wife, and Allen, who despises his father. There isn't really a boring moment in it, although, to be sure, it wanders all over the place and explores, however briefly and unsatisfactorily, a number of issues and the conflicts they generate.Lee has chosen to use Aaron Copeland's music to provide a symphonic score that is curiously at odds with the lives we're watching. The visuals get down on their knees and sob for hip hop. Yet the score is appropriate because it helps to universalize a story that otherwise might seem locked into too narrow a cultural setting.Ray Allen, sports figure, can't act very well. He's an object of envy anyway. Full of principle, for one thing. Old Denzel's future would have been lost the moment that Italian salesman offered me the two-million dollar platinum watch. Also, is there a greater imaginable thrill on Planet Earth than getting it on with Rosario Dawson while in the cage of one of those giant swings in the amusement park? Denzel Washington gives one of his best performances and the others are easily up to par, especially Bill Nunn as Allen's new Dad who is unable to see any future that doesn't include diamond pinkie rings and a new Lexus. He's hilarious.I've always been chary of Spike Lee since "Do the Right Thing," which closes with admonishments from Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X -- in that climactic order. The last words were "by any means necessary." When the goal to be achieved is something as vague and general as "freedom" or "democracy", using any means you consider necessary can get you into trouble. Instead of achieving freedom you're liable to achieve jail, and instead of achieving democracy you're liable to achieve a somebody else's civil war. There are sentiments that belong on bumper stickers and nowhere else.However, Lee's films generally have been far from rabble rousers, and "He Got Game" is no exception. It's a well-done drama with a couple of clunkers in it. (A magic basketball sails all the way from Attica's exercise yard to the court at Big State University.) The whole thing, weaknesses notwithstanding, is odd but gripping. We really DO want to see how it turns out.