by Wallace Baine film writer Santa Cruz Sentinel
"He Got Game" Verdict: A-
The main character's name is Jesus. The movie's tag line is `The father, the son and the holy game.'
Allegories don't get more obvious than that, but despite the explicitness -- or maybe even because of it -- Spike Lee's heartfelt `He Got Game' transcends its sports-movie orientation to become a convincingly unsentimental examination of a father's tough love of his gifted son. And we're not talking about that Father or that son.
Lee's enthusiasm for basketball, specifically the New York Knicks, is in fact more famous than any of his movies. `He Got Game' is easily one of the most eloquent odes to hoops committed to film and if you figured Spike Lee would be the last director on earth to fall for mytho-poetics, you underestimate the depth of his love for this game. A picturesque opening montage shuttles from farm boy to ghetto kid and several demographic shades in between, all engaging in the primal slo-mo of the well-executed jump shot. Lee's lovingly rendered shots of the ball's arc through the air recalls the famous bone toss in `2001: A Space Odysessy.' Even the bombastic opening score by John Williams is jarringly unlike Spike.
>From that aching beginning comes a penetrating story of dubious redemption involving one Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington), an aging ex-hoopster serving hard time in Attica for accidentally killing his wife in a domestic dispute. On the outside, Jake's son Jesus (pronounced just like a certain King of the Jews) has blossomed into the nation's most highly touted high-school basketball player. A lanky forward with Jordan-like moves and a killer instinct on the court, Jesus is struggling to stay real amidst the swirl of attention from colleges, sports agents, the media and friends and family of less-than-pure motives.
The warden of Attica offers Jake a deal. If he can convince his son to sign with the governor's alma mater, a school called Big State, then Jake's sentence will be shortened considerably. Problem is, Jesus has nursed a murderous resentment against his father for the murder of his mother. With one week left before the deadline to state his intentions for his future, the last thing Jesus needs is to deal with a father he hasn't seen in six years.
`He Got Game' is gimmicky. Spike Lee's celebrity in the world of big-time basketball allows him to line up a number of heavyweights -- from college coaches like Dean Smith and John Thompson to pro players like Reggie Miller, Shaquille O'Neal and His Airness -- to sing the praises of Jesus in a faux SportsCenter report. The young man's first name is exploited in any number of hokey media puns (`Jesus Saves' trumpets Sports Illustrated). Underneath the hokum, however, is a movie worth savoring. Holed up in a foul, dingy hotel, Jake attempts to get the ear of his son while making time with a battered white prostitute (Milla Jovovich) and keeping at bay the two cantakerous parole officers assign to birddog him (one of whom is the wonderfully gruff Jim Brown).
At some point, however, the story finds it teeth in the travails of Jesus, played with understatement by real-life NBA star Ray Allen. Like his namesake seeking righteousness in a cesspool of licentiousness, Jesus is intent on playing by the rules even when he is surrounded by corrupted people with their own agendas who see Jesus as a potential cash cow including his coach, his girlfriend and even his uncle and legal guardian. With only his kid sister and his loyal cousin Booger (wasn't that the Apostle Paul's nickname?) to trust, Jesus navigates the money-changers, keeping his intentions to himself. Jake's job is to convince his son that he's not just trailing the golden goose like everyone else, which is going to be tough since he's got his own agenda.
The difficult relationship between Jake and Jesus is revealed in fitful flashback as we observe an unforgiving Jake pushing his son to exploit his talents to the fullest. When the eventful showdown comes between father and son, it comes on a basketball court.
`He Got Game' certainly has it excesses and missteps, the chief among them Jake's tryst with the hooker, a subplot that only adds length to the movie. But Spike Lee's respect -- nay, worship -- of basketball is contagious and his audacious metaphors give shape to a powerful story of a father's efforts to save his son. And we all know a thing or two about that story.
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