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He Got Game

1998

Spike Lee

Denzel Washington, Ray Allen, Milla Jovovich, Rosario Dawson ...

6.6

6,587

Drama Tells the story of Jesus Shuttlesworth, the most sought after high school basketball prospect in the nation. Jesus and his dream to make it to the big ranks in professional basketball are overshadowed by his father, Jake, who is spending his life in prison for killing Jesus' mother.

	Media	Author	Review
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"Spike Lee brings the spirit of a poet to his films about everyday reality (...) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 5)"
		Emanuel Levy Variety	"Lee constructs intriguing profiles of father and son (...) Ultimately, Lee aims too high, and the scope may be too large for one picture (...) Lee’s script is sprawling and uneven"
		Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"'He Got Game' provides potent entertainment even if you find hoops about as enticing as soggy sweat socks."
		Bob McCabe Empire	"Lee is back at the top of his game, positioning himself as one of the best American filmmakers of his day (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Stephen Hunter The Washington Post	"A mild disappointment. It's too jampacked with subplots (...) To its credit, the film does avoid the cliches of every single sports movie ever made"
		Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"Lee's best narrative film in years (...) What's different this time is how personally driven the story feels"
		Janet Maslin The New York Times	"If 'He Got Game' is overcrowded, it's also reaching for a wider scope, if not a greater depth, than Mr. Lee's other films"
		Derek Adams Time Out	"Most scenes play too long, with a surplus of ideas, textures, tones and characters, and after 134 minutes it's clear Lee's problem with closure hasn't gone away."
		Keith Phipps AV Club	"There's not a relationship in 'He Got Game' that feels right (...) [It plods] along with scenes that fail to connect"
		Paul Tatara CNN	"Lee is a smart guy who has a way with visuals, but he's a painfully obvious screenwriter"
		Tom Hutchinson Radio Times	"[A] superb sports drama (...) The confrontations feel real, the games have tension and the underlying message is universally scathing (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		David Denby New York Magazine	"The movie is startlingly candid (...) The scenes between Washington and Jovovich (...) are about the most tender Spike Lee has ever filmed."
		IGN	"Lee clouds what could have been a wonderful basketball movie (...) The intensity of Denzel Washington shines through in every frame"

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