Home :: DVD :: African American Cinema  

Blaxploitation
Breakthrough Cinema
Comedy
Documentary
Drama
Series & Sequels
Soul Cinema
TV & Miniseries
He Got Game

He Got Game

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >>

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: horrible movie
Review: This was one of Lee's worst. There were a load of unnecessary scenes that made the movie way too long. Also, as usual, this movie has a ton of jibes at white people and how they victimize black folks. However, Ray Allen was the worst part. This guy has horrible diction, trying really hard I could understand maybe half of what the guy said. I can't believe Ebert praised his performance.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A moving story about basketball and redemption
Review: Spike Lee has always been able to take a film based in everyday reality and bring out the spirit of a poet. This was released in 1998 after a slump in quality over Spike's catalogue since his masterpiece "Malcolm X", and it is an excellent return-to-form, giving us yet another classic story set against the projects in Brooklyn. The story centers around Jesus Shuttlesworth, a high school basketball player and the nation's top prospect, as he prepares to make the most important decision of his life: which college basketball scholarship to accept. The young man's father Jake, played with excellent conviction by Denzel Washington, is currently imprisoned for the murder of his wife. The state governor makes him an offer: he will release him for one week so he can try and convince his son to enroll at the governor's alma mater, and if he is successful he will reduce Jake's sentence.

Times have been rough for young Jesus since his mother's death and his father's imprisonment, after an unhappy stay with some relatives, Jesus now lives on his own in an apartment with his younger sister Mary. He naturally bears a lot of resentment toward his father, who, although he taught him how to play ball, was a stubborn and abusive man while raising Jesus. When he sees Jake has been released, he wants nothing to do with him, and the majority of the movie is spent examining their relationship, as Jake attempts to reconcile with his son, and maybe develop an understanding of each other.

Spike deals with their relationship on many different levels, as he allows both of them to reveal their good traits and their faults. Jesus must try and stay level-headed as he deals with the barrage of recruitment offers that are thrown in his face, the constant nagging question of "Have you decided?", his deceitful and unfaithful girlfriend, and the wave of bad memories that his father's return is bringing back to him. At the same time, Jake faces his own bleak prospects, as he is forced to stay in a seedy motel, where he stays next door to a hooker and must listen to her be assaulted and sodomized by her pimp at night. He must constantly be on call and check in with two smarmy detectives who have been assigned to keep him on lock-down. There is an enormous amount of pressure on both father and son, and the way they interact and relate plays a lot off of those key elements.

There are many layers to the story, looking at the thick and fast world of professional sports recruiting as well as the way the media tends to create unwilling heroes out of kids who come out of the projects and into the limelight, but most of this film's greatness rests solely in Washington's excellent performance as he attempts to redeem his heart and soul and, hopefully, heal his relationship with his only son in the process. Ray Allen, who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, makes a good acting debut delivering his lines honestly and earnestly, and Rosario Dawson, who plays his girlfriend Lala, is nice eye candy. The soundtrack is an eclectic mixture of Aaron Copeland and Public Enemy, that actually gives an interesting balance to the film; contemplative and thought-provoking with a rough street edge. The ending is memorable, though some feel it is somewhat surreal and unnecessary. I don't really care, because the emotion is still there, and it still leaves you feeling hopeful that something good can come of even the worst situations.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Would turn the stomach of a sewer rat..
Review: This is one slimy flick. Without a doubt, one of Milla Jovovich's worst preformances. All it's about is guy (played by Denzel Washington) who gets back on the street for one reason or another, after doing some hard time, and then tries to reunite with his family. Not surprisily, they don't want him around, and he lands himself back in jail after going on a pathetic ego trip. Yet, this guy is made out to be a sad, misunderstood victum of society, dispite the fact he was a drunken idiot who stabbed his wife. This film also features various random sex scene that don't really have much to do with the few shreds of plot found in this film...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Stupid
Review: This film is one of the worst. The acting is bad and most of characters are whiny and anoying. He Got Game also paints a very unrealistic picture of college life, and it is very degrading to women overall. A waste of time.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: MISGUIDED
Review: ...He Got Game was not quite as good as I thought it should be. Denzel Washington was superb as always, as the jailed father of a basketball player, who is allowed out of jail to help convince his semi-estranged son to attend a certain university. Washington is convincing. His sexual escapades with the relatively untalented Milla Jovovich are not all that believable, although I guess if I had been in prison for so long I might consider Jovovich also. The real life basketball player who plays the basketball star who has to choose his path is all right. He is no actor, though, and his path to decisionmaking is pretty long and boring and there is just a bit too much sex in it. His conniving girlfriend Lala is trying to make him turn pro and is seeing agents on the side. She also has no qualms about not being loyal to him. Misdirected misfire, this film. It is a shame, but it did serve my immediate purposes.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: More than just about basketball...
Review: This is a movie about basketball. It's a Spike Lee film too. So it's bound to express his well-known love for the game. As we can expect from him, his view is a fresh, uncompromising one. There's a harsh reality behind all the exaggerations and hype.

The story surrounds a high-school basketball star with the unlikely name of Jesus and the most important decision he must make in his life -- what college basketball scholarship he will accept. Temptations are everywhere and everyone around him feels entitled to some of his future financial success. Denzel Washington plays his father who is serving a long prison sentence for murdering his wife, the boy's mother. However, the governor wants the boy to go to his alma mater and therefore grants him a week out of prison to also influence the boy.

Spike Lee's camera seeks out the outrageous details that add the wince, the pow and the dimension to the film. It explores human nature as well as some ugly truths using the vehicle of the story as an allegory. The music is an eclectic mix of Aaron Copeland and Public Enemy and somehow it works. And there are also cameo performances by real live basketball players and coaches.

I enjoyed the video and can even forgive the fact that it was a little too long and that some of the acting did not measure up to Denzel Washington's superb performance. Spike Lee fans will love it. Recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Spike's Best flick ever!
Review: Spike Lee is the gresta director that ever lived! hes flicks haze anythuing one could wazt in a flick. good azting good dircetding and a verzy good and interstin sotyboard. Denzal washington is one of the gretrst actzors among us nowe. he desrveed a award for hes aczting in this one! people have to see this one

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: He got game
Review: He got game is a splendid movie! Most basketball movies out there are just an excuse to have footage of people throwing a basketball. He got game is more than that, Spike manages to intricately weave personal dilema of Jesus and his family into the movie. The movie is a touching dipiction of a young man who is forced to grow-up before his time because of his socio-economic position and a young man who stands to be exploited because of his natural talents.The only qualm I have is that the ending is rather suspect otherwise, a great movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: tight
Review: this movie was tight. The ending was a little weak, but the plot shows what it takes, and what some people have to overcome to get anywhere in life. This movie isn't a waste of anyone's time unless you ain't a basketball fan.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This Movie...........WOW
Review: not so much as reviewing the dvd, but the movie in general. It's REALLY bad, nobody saw it and theres a reason for that. It has no story, the acting is terrible and the ending is the worst part. It leaves the movie viewer with a sense of disgust. Even if you like basketball i suggest you stay away from this movie. Because you will just be wasting your time and will never get the time back in your life. Spike lee is a terrible director and gives other directors bad names because he calls his movies joints, which is pointless. Bad movie i suggest not watching it. If you have i feel bad for you, especially you Jeff, i know you love it. It's really bad.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates