The St. Joseph's coach was easy to dislike, yet there was something ultimately redeeming about him as well. As a documentary maker, Steve James, is one of the best based on this movie. Imagine investing over five years of your life just in the filming. The camerawork, especially toward the end, is more evocative of a bigger budget movie than the usual home movie flavor you normally get in a documentary. The marvelous editing by Bill Haugse, Steve James, and Frederick Marx has a lot of energy and although you are sitting in your seat for a long time, you never get tired because the subject matter is so interesting, and it is so well done.
Sports movie are especially tricky.
You can show a lot of sports action and do little story development, or you can mainly talk about sports with some shots to illustrate your points. You see a lot of basketball, but mainly it dwells on the kids and their families. If there is a villain in the show, it is probably the recruiters. After seeing this, you may rank recruiters as a class below politicians you don't like, aluminum siding salesmen, and contingency fee lawyers. It is rated barely PG-13 for a smaller than expected amount of profanity.