Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
And so we enter the world of the basketballmen, and in particular the world of basketballman prodigy Ray Allen’s Jesus Shuttlesworth, coming to the end of his high school career and heavily courted by universities and professional teams alike. His father, Denzel Washington’s Jake Shuttlesworth, looks on proudly, but from behind bars. He’s approached with an offer from the state governors office – namely to get Jesus to sign up with the guv’s old uni, in return for time off his sentence.
So, Jake is sent off on a work release of sorts, and set up but his watchers in a cheap and sleazy hotel where he’ll meet love interest and hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype, Milla Jovovich’s Dakota, but initially has much less success in meeting with his son. Fair, enough, I suppose, after all, he was put in jail for the accidental death of his wife following some not-at-all accidental domestic violence. Bound to put a strain on the familial bonds.
While Denzel’s the marquee name on the acting side of things, it’s actually yer actual basketballman Ray Allen that’s got all of the decisions to make and souls to search as a rotating smorgasbord of people come to Jesus trying to influence his decision or simply freeload off of him, be that family members, scouts, college reps or his girlfriend, Rosario Dawson’s Lala. Thankfully Allen is up to the task, and having no knowledge of the state of late nineties basketball reality I did not know he was yer actual basketballman, and if Wikipedia hadn’t told me so I doubt I’d have guessed it, although perhaps his undeniable athleticism on the basketball pitch should have clued me in. Top work, fella.
With terrific performances across the board and a killer soundtrack, He Got Game is one of Spike Lee’s most easily enjoyable films, and perhaps the easiest watch of his so far. However, that breeziness does rather come at the expense of any kind of deeper connection with anything in the film, which is unusual for Lee, as he’s not exactly known for his subtlety. He Got Game presents us with an interesting bunch of characters, for sure, and I enjoyed my time with them, but at the end I not sure I’ve really learned all that much about them, or that they’ve learned much about themselves.
There’s some other minor qualms I could list, although pointing out any factual flaws in either the scouting process or the foster arrangements seems a bit silly in a film with an actual teleporting basketball, so the only one I’ll mention is that this is the first of Lee’s films that’s gone over two hours that I’ve felt probably shouldn’t have done, and it’s not going to be the only time in this episode I’ll be saying that.
However, it’s not too big of an issue, and I’d be perfectly well entertained by Denzel Washington reading a phone book for two hours, so, again, a very watchable and enjoyable film, but ultimately doesn’t have quite the impact of some of his prior work.