What's in A Game?
As far as subjects for documentary films go, the Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic and the young men invited to participate in it are a slam dunk.The event, the first time staging of what has become an annual affair, brought together the nation's top 24 high school basketball players to form two teams and compete against each other in one extraordinary game that took place on New York City's most famous public basketball court at Rucker Park in Harlem, where basketball greats Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dr. J got their starts.
The young players who've been invited to compete are extremely talented and interesting kids, each with a different personal story to tell and with keen ambitions for a career in professional basketball. Whether you're a dedicated basketball fan or not, the idea of all that talent and all those personalities converging on one court at the same time is absolutely thrilling, and knowing the circumstances of the game--it's pure sport for sport's sake--sets up tremendous expectations. Mostly, you really want to see these phenoms moving in concert with and against each other.
Unfortunately, Gunnin' For That #1 Spot really doesn't deliver the goods on the playing of the game.
Style Over Substance
The primary reason is that the film's director, Adam Yauch (Awesome, I F**kin' Shot That, 2006), obscures the game's action with gimmicky shooting and editing techniques. With the use of fisheye lenses and other effects that distort and/or interrupt the game's flow. For example, time and again, players execute super smooth and phenomenally elegant moves to score nearly impossible baskets, and you really want to see the flow of what they're doing. Instead, Yauch gives you an annoying forward-reverse-forward-reverse-forward edit that produces a sort of visual stutter. It's as though Yauch didn't believe that his subject was interesting enough to play itself without being played. Perhaps Yauch's directorial style is a by product of his day job--as a member of the Hop Hop trio the Beastie Boys. That visual stutter mentioned above is a bit like a DJ's rip on a record--something straight out of MTV. Yauch's Hip Hop sensibility is elsewhere evident in the film's soundtrack, in which music and augmented audio elements are intensively integrated with images. Again, reminiscent of MTV.In fairness to Yauch, his sensibility and style should be recognized as an authentic expression of the cultural attitudes of some of the players who's stories he's telling, and will undoubtedly appeal to many of their fans.
Up Close And Personal
Of the eight players featured in Gunnin' For That #1 Spot, however, we do get excellent and intriguing profiles. We see that Jerryd Bayless, Michael Beasley, Tyreke Evans, Donte Greene, Brandon Jenning, Kevin Love, Kyle Singler and Lance Stephenson come from very different backgrounds, but have the basketball court as their common ground. It's fascinating to see their attitudes towards the game, their burgeoning celebrity and each other revealed as the film progresses. Here, too, Yauch gets creative--or, some might say gimmicky. The players are introduced with the use of stylish graphics, including photos of them on collectible cards. It's a creative choice, but feels kind of heavy handed.
Yauch never appears in this film, but he is very much a presence in it. In fact, the film is as much about the director's choices as it is about his subject matter. And, bottom line, I'd have to say that this is a case where less would have been more.
Film Facts
Gunnin' For That #1 Spot
Directed by Adam Yauch
Release date: June 27, 2008
Rating: PG-13 for language
Distributor: Oscilloscope Pictures
