HOOP DREAMS
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1994 Ben Hoffman
Most of the movie-going public shies away from seeing documentaries ... and almost three hours? They want nice, fictionalized stories. Those are going to miss out if they do not go see the very exciting, thrilling, at times heartbreaking, story of two real inner-city Chicago junior high school athletes whose dream was to make it one day into the NBA.
What makes the film so wonderful is that three filmmakers, Steve James, Frederick Marx and Peter Gilbert, followed and filmed the two young men, William Gates and Arthur Agee, for almost five years. While ostensibly about basketball ... and there is lots of footage showing practice and games ... the story is really of the hope that motivated William and Arthur, and about their fathers and mothers and what happened to each during all the years it took to make the movie.
More gripping than the basketball scenes are the relations with the coaches, (one of whom is suing for having been pictured as a kind of monster), and the personal lives of the young men and their families. Fortunately for the filmmakers, if not for the people in the movie, much takes place that they could not have foreseen but which enhanced the film with even more drama.
This is one documentary you do not want to miss even if you do not know a basketball from a ping-pong ball.
Directed by Steve James.
4 bytes 4 Bytes = Absolutely must see. 3 Bytes = Too good to be missed. 2 Bytes = So so. 1 Byte = Save your money.
Ben Hoffman
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