NFL
By: Matt Overton
The Eleventh Joint
He Got Game is one of Spike Lee’s most iconic films, and for good reason. Anyone familiar with the man should be aware of his obsessive love of basketball, and it is through this motion picture that he gleefully shares it with the world. Now, I’m not a sports fan by any means; I do my best to avoid sports content or discourse whenever possible. However, I do understand the allure and emotion that come with watching a bunch of grown men play a game. Every so often, a sports film comes across my desk that deeply affects me—He Got Game is one of them.
Jake is a former amateur ball player, but at the beginning of this film, he’s doing time at Attica Penitentiary for murder. In his second Spike Lee joint, it should come as no surprise that Denzel Washington is the emotional core of He Got Game. He has conflicted motivations and a troublesome relationship with his son, Jesus, the number one high school baller in the world. Jake is assigned the task of convincing his son to attend Big State, with the governor himself promising to commute his sentence if he succeeds.
Only someone as obsessed with sports as Spike could come up with such a plot. It’s absurd but also completely believable because sports absolutely do have that kind of power over their fans. There aren’t many other hobbies that lead people to rioting—or promising shorter prison sentences. The power that sports have over the collective is gargantuan, and no matter how much I dislike professional organized sports, it’s a phenomenon that will never go away. He Got Game is a passionate depiction of that intangible phenomenon, but also an exercise in love, as Spike Lee has created one of the greatest basketball movies ever.
The main driving force behind this narrative is Jake’s relationship with Jesus, but there are also some minor subplots with varying degrees of effectiveness. Mila Jovovich plays a prostitute who is having a change of heart; Jesus’ love interest Lala is playing him behind the scenes; and his greedy Uncle, who raised him, is doing his best to get a slice of whatever deal is on the table. Whether Jesus commits to a college or goes straight to the pros is something the movie is constantly toying with. Considering his biblical name and all of the religious allegories the media runs, it’s a safe bet that he would go pro, especially with his and his sister’s impoverished status. But the movie does a great job of keeping that decision mysterious until the very end.
I’m so uninformed when it comes to modern sports that I had no idea Ray Allen was a player in the NBA until after I finished watching He Got Game. With hindsight, I can say his performance was a little stilted, but he brought the right kind of naïve energy to this role. All of the famous coaches and athletes who had cameos in this were pretty cool too, especially having Michael Jordan being in a single clip just to say the name of the movie. That was a legendary move.
He Got Game had me hooked from the opening slow-mo montage of people casually balling around the world. The love Spike holds for this sport is infectious. Not to brag, but I was awarded the Most Improved Player on my 7th-grade basketball team. While I never made it onto a high school team for any sport, some of my favorite childhood memories involved playing basketball or baseball. So while I passionately detest professional sports nowadays, I can still find enough passion in this production to say I wholeheartedly loved the time I spent watching He Got Game.
