All over the court but sometimes compelling.

Rating: 6/10 (12 July 2007)

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.