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"He Got Game" Movie Review

Spike Lee's still on his 'Game'

By Mike Clark

Spike Lee is one of the few current filmmakers whose artistic shortcomings stem from overabundant passion, which may be more telling about the industry than it is about Lee.

His exuberant basketball saga He Got Game ( out of four) flies in as many directions as Jungle Fever did, and the dueling trajectories get him into trouble. But this is also the year's first Hollywood movie to burst with palpable feeling, and here it is May already.

Reuniting with Lee after Mo' Better Blues and Malcolm X, Denzel Washington is far more credible than his material playing the senior half of estranged father-son protagonists on contrasting life tracks: dead-end and fast. The son (Milwaukee Bucks guard Ray Allen) is the country's No. 1 high school basketball prospect, and his coach, girlfriend, piece-of-work uncle and groupies-on-call all want what they perceive to be their share from the coming bounty. So does Dad (especially Dad), but at least his motives are purer.

Washington's character is in prison for an initially undivulged crime, and in a quick turn of events that feels too B-movie contrived, he's given a deal by the warden (Ned Beatty). Persuade your on-the-fence offspring to attend the governor's chosen university (Big State), and let's just see about a reduced sentence. We'll even give you a brief release, a few nights' residence in a fleabag Coney Island hotel and two New York cops with attitude to track your moves (one played by Jim Brown in another of Lee's inspired casting strokes).

Allen's character is more fully developed than Washington's; an added bonus is Allen can act (at least in this movie). The superstar senior he plays isn't perfect but, under the circumstances, remarkable: He's raising a younger sister with Dad gone, his mom dead and an uncle (Bill Nunn) giving the girl the wrong kind of looks. By contrast, Washington's chance relationship with a hotel hooker (Milla Jovovich) clashes with the rest, though one of their scenes rates individually among the movie's best.

Ultimately, it's a wealth of individual scenes that puts the movie over, from father-son squabbling (on and off the court) to an instant classic between Allen and the kind of sports agent Jerry Maguire was trying not to be. And though the score sounds schizophrenic on paper, Aaron Copland and Public Enemy are a surprisingly harmonious fast-break combination.