He Got Game was directed by Spike Lee and released in 1998 and was not an entirely bad film but it was a very unfocused one.
The plot is Denzel Washington plays a guy named Jake Shuttlesworth, who has an incredibly talented athlete for a son (played by real life basketball star Ray Allen) who is said to be the best prospect for college basketball as he is just exiting high-school. Jake no longer talks to his son or has any kind of working relationship with him because of his violence against and murder of his spouse and mother of his child that landed him in a long-term prison sentence. Jake is given a deal that if he can convince his son to pursue his college basketball career through the state governor's favorite team he can have a shorter sentence. He is given one week of parole to convince his son to do this.
The plot of this movie is not the problem, the problem is the extreme amount of layers of ideas and talking points that are shoehorned into this sports-drama. Issues such as African American youth being exploited for their bodies instead of their minds by rich white people, the lust for money, the changing relationships as you grow-up, learning to deal with the past, poverty, structural racism, etc. Spike Lee loaded this film with details and it weighs down the entire mid-section. The mid-section of this overly long film tries to convey the confusion felt by Ray Allen's character on who he should trust and what does he actually want but it is laborous to sit through. Denzel Washington's character should have been the focus as he is facing the prospect of trying to reestablish a relationship with his son only because he wants to use him to get out of prison and this is explored and it is far more interesting to watch. The movie just meanders through its mid-section where you know the inevitable show-down between father and son on the basketball court is going to happen and it just takes too long for it to transpire.
The main problem with the movie is that professional sports using young disadvantaged kids as prospects for rich white men to profit from is a very real topic but a drama involving the father possibly manipulating his son just muddies the water. This topic has been dealt with better in other places, it was dealt with head-on in the excellent 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams directed by Steve James and more lightheartedly in the 1996 romantic-comedy Jerry McGuire directed by Cameron Crowe where the issues underscored the reality of the situations involved so people could comprehend why Tom Cruise's sports-agent character was so conflicted.
The soundtrack was anything but unfocused.
This soundtrack showed that Public Enemy in 1998 were just as talented as when they were the hot-topic in the late 1980's and early 1990's. It also showed that they hadn't mellowed out their political raps or become decadent by rhyming about hedonistic lifestyles that had become cliche in the rap genre even at this time. All the issues in the film are dealt with better and more entertainingly in this album, the movie should have stuck to the drama felt by its characters, it should not have dwelt on showing the drama the world that surrounded them created.
The issues in the film are here - sports agents profiting on black misery is in 'Politics of the Sneaker Pimps' and the excitement but ultimate dispossibility of those who are young, gifted and black is in 'What You Need is Jesus' and 'Go Cat Go'. PE also tackle how they and many other rappers became obsolete when rich executives felt they weren't profitable enough in the song 'Is Your God a Dog' which also touches on rappers killing each other to add to the conflict. PE address themselves as they hadn't been visible since around 1991 in 'Resurrection', 'Unstoppable' and 'Game Face' where they declare their intentions of not compromising and not backing away from the self-awareness they always preached.
On this album PE showed that they were senior heads at the business of making rap music as the music here does not hold-back but is always tasteful.The beats and music are clear, they have none of the noise and controlled-chaos that characterised their earlier work. They also show that they are seasoned pros at marketing by tactfully modernising their sound without destroying it. PE one-up Puff Daddy (later called P. Diddy then just Diddy but always Sean Combs) by doing the pop-rap staple of taking a well known musical hook and building a rap song over it better than the others with the track 'He Got Game' which uses the tune from Buffalo Springfield's song 'For What it's Worth'. This song was the obvious single and I remember it back in 1998 as getting decent airtime in Australia.
All in all, the soundtrack was focused and hard-hitting. The movie was muddled.
Here's the song 'Is Your God a Dog'. It doesn't have a real video as the only music video made from this soundtrack, the song 'He Got Game' isn't available in my country. 'Is Your God a Dog' is bit less accessible for the uninitiated but is the stronger song,
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