He Got Game (1998, DVD)

To enjoy "He Got Game," you first have to be willing to suspend disbelief, because the whole film is built around one giant whopper: That a basketball-nut governor and a career prison warden would risk their careers, and even possible imprisonment themselves, for no other reason than to make sure that a basketball player signs with the home team.

The basic concept is this: Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) is serving a lengthy term for manslaughter. His son, Jesus (Ray Allen), is the #1-rated high school basketball player in the country. The warden (Ned Beatty) at Jake's prison makes Jake an offer: he'll be released for one week, in order to convince his son to sign with the governor's Alma Mater; in return, the governor will significantly reduce Jake's sentence. THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN: if word got out, the governor's political career would be over, and he more than likely would be serving a prison sentence of his own.

But if the central premise is difficult to buy into, then at least it's the only thing presented here that's difficult to believe. Once Jake's "furlough" has been set up, we cut to young Jesus Shuttlesworth, about to graduate from high school and facing an all-too-believable array of pressures as the deadline for college registration looms. Money, sex, and fancy sports cars are thrust at the young athlete by virtually everyone he meets. The coach he has trusted offers him a $10,000 bribe to choose his college. His girlfriend wants him to sign with a sports agent who "just happens" to be an old family friend. His uncle has already mentally spent Jesus' projected earnings, and doesn't hesitate to use family guilt to try to pressure the young man into going for as much money as he can get. A visit to one of the colleges wooing him doesn't ease these pressures; instead, a pair of pretty young (white) coeds try a little private "recruitment" of their own. And everyone he talks to informs Jesus that the choice of colleges "will be the most important decision of (his) life."

Sadly, none of these pressures seem at all far-fetched. The barrage of seduction, bribery, and ego-patting seems likely to be a fairly accurate assessment of the wooing of a "blue chips" player. Given this, the thought struck me very quickly: how can any young athlete, barely 18 years old with no life experience to speak of, possibly be expected to hold out with everything that's dangled in front of them? It seems amazing that there are any "honest" players at all.

The rest of the film traces the parallel stories of father and son over the week that follows. Jesus weighs his options, and discovers that almost of the people he had trusted are trying to push him to the decision that will most profit them. Jake tries to reconnect with his son, who is not very happy to see him, and with reason. In a tremendously powerful flashback, we see Jake's last night of freedom, and it is not a very flattering portrait. Starting with a basketball practice with his son, where he relentlessly bullies the younger man while getting drunk on the sidelines; and ending in a fight at their home, where he roughly shoves his wife (Lonette McKee) to her accidental death, the man he was before prison seems to be bitter, angry, and hateful in equal measure.

The present-day Jake seems for the most part considerably reformed. But as the week nears its end, he returns to his old habits. While getting drunk in the middle of the day, he encounters Jesus' short, less athletic friend (Hill Harper). Jake immediately begins bullying the poor boy, getting angrier and angrier as the young man seems first unable, then unwilling, to help him. In the end, we are left with an impression of a largely ruined man who not only belongs in jail, but may actually be better off there. His final words to his son, to "let go the hatred in your heart . . . or you'll end up just another n*gger--like your father" tend to underline this. Jake has given up on his own future, and had probably done so long before his imprisonment. The only future left is his son's.

The performances are generally excellent in this film. Washington is outstanding, as usual, maintaining a dangerous edge in his performance throughout. Ray Allen, an NBA player, holds his own more than respectably in a role that would challenge many veteran actors. But one problem pervades. As in many of the director's films, Spike Lee just doesn't know when to quit. "He Got Game" is certainly a good movie; with about twenty minutes of judicious trimming, it would have been even better. A subplot involving Jake's friendship with a local prostitute (Milla Jovovich) takes up far too much screen time, and mainly ends up stealing focus from the central conflict. An initially-perceptive monologue by a local drug dealer about all the pressures Jesus can expect to encounter goes on far, far, far too long, until the viewer wants to shout at the screen: "We get it, we get it already!" A scene, mentioned earlier, involving Jesus and two college coeds is shown in a lot more detail than is called for, and seems gratuitous. And lastly, just how many plays on the name "Jesus" does Spike Lee think we need in one movie anyway?

But even suffering from overlength and a flawed central premise, "He Got Game" remains consistently interesting and inventive. Given the amount of junk viewers are force-fed every year, that alone is enough to recommend it.


Rating: *** out of *****

Written and directed by: Spike Lee. Starring: Denzel Washington, Ray Allen, Milla Jovovich, Rosario Dawson, Ned Beatty, Hill Harper, Bill Nunn, Lonette McKee, Zelda Harris, Jim Brown, John Turturro, Thomas Jefferson Byrd.


Year Released: 1999
Running Time: 135 minutes
Rated: R (Contains Explicit Sex, Nudity, Profanity, and Violence)

Available on VHS Home Video and DVD.