Powerful, but uneven

Rating: Null/10 (26 December 1998)

Denzel Washington's performance is amazing, and a delight to watch. He is so good that I was able to forget for long minutes that it was a movie while under his spell. The story is plausible enough, and beautifully filmed, although I can't help but wonder if the temptations that face a rising basketball star are quite as vicious as pictured here. Three things subtracted from what would otherwise be a real work of art: (1) The large amount of graphic sexual content really wasn't necessary. (2) The point of character Jesus Shuttlesworth's first name was really not clear, yet it was ceaselessly trumpeted and highlighted; it was a distracting, muddy concept. (3) The ending was extremely disappointing and bizarre.
Up until the very last few minutes, I was entirely taken in by this film. The ending, however, left me feeling somewhat ripped off. Still, I found myself thinking about the movie for hours afterwards, and even lying awake at night trying to come up with the ending that I would like to have seen.
I wasn't sure what Aaron Copeland's music had to do with the urban black setting of the story, and I wished that there was a lot more of Public Enemy.