HE GOT GAME

Year Released: 1998 MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 127 minutes Click to Expand Credits: Starring Denzel Washington, Ray Allen, John Turturro, Hill Harper, and Roger Guenveur Smith. Directed by Spike Lee and Malik Hassan Sayeed. Produced by Jon Kilik and Spike Lee. Written by Spike Lee.

Like “Hoop Dreams,” Spike Lee’s latest revolves around a hot high school basketball star (NBær Ray Allen as the kid poetically named Jesus) and like “Blue Chips,” it’s about the dirty business of college recruitment. Denzel Washington gives a slam-dunk performance as Jesus’ temperamental father, serving a prison term for the death of his wife. He gets furloughed with the promise of a shortened sentence if he can convince Jesus to attend the Governor’s alma mater. Lee makes a great looking film, though the soap box message about greed becomes exhausted and overplayed early on. Allen looks uncomfortably stiff as his character sulks through his big decision and the stylistically ambitious ending, while edgy and striking, is unsatisfactory. Lee should have drawn up a tighter game plan but just the same his hoops hoopla still has enough game (mostly in the form of Washington) to win over the audience.

Posted on May 4, 1998 in Reviews by Tom Meek

	Buffer	Tweet	Follow @FilmThreat

---

If you liked this article then you may also like the following Film Threat articles:

• JESUS COMES TO TOWN
• EWAN MCGREGOR AND COLIN FARREL TEAM UP WITH WOODY ALLEN
• JESUS WAS BLACK
• WOODY ALLEN WAXES ON
• WILD MAN BLUES

---

Popular Stories from Around the Web