He Got Game review

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Spike Lee couldn't make a dull movie if he were ordered to with a gun pressed to his head. Here, he weaves his familiar mix of textured technical wizardry and poetic resonance into a subject he was born to film. From the dazzling slo-mo opening montage of black, white, rich and poor kids each spinning their solo hoop-and-ball artistry, it's clear that Lee is not only in love with the purity of the sport itself but also with the idea of basketball as a social leveller.

Thankfully, He Got Game is much more than a cloying, self-indulgent love-poem to a certain obsession. Lee uses the sport as leverage to present a blissfully unsentimental approach to themes and issues which have already been hackneyed to pieces by the ersatz emoting of mainstream Hollywood (morality, temptation, forgiveness, redemption, the father-son relationship).

An accomplished and accessible tale of loyalty, identity and dedication set within the closing jaws of big, bad business. If you have no interest in basketball (or sport in general), it might even woo you a little. If you love basketball, you'll wet yourself.

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