It takes a while to hit its stride, but once that happens, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch’s Gunnin' for That #1 Spot does a terrific job capturing the hustle and flow of basketball, the sport it depicts. "They’re gonna be millionaires in about five years," says the P.A. announcer (a hip and hilarious character known as Bobbito) of the players from around the country who come to compete in the first "Elite 24 High School All-American Game," held in ’06 in Harlem’s Rucker Park, home to countless playground legends. For some, including 2008 NBA first-round draft picks Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, and Jerryd Bayless, it happened a lot sooner than that; for others it won’t happened at all. But at the time, all the studs on the Blue and White teams had big-time hoop dreams, and the Rucker event was a chance to strut their stuff on a big stage. Problem is, it takes the better part of an hour to get to the actual game; profiles of the players, including visits to their home towns and interviews with friends, family, and others, are perfectly amiable but end up being rather monotonous (fewer than half are included in the documentary itself, with the others found on the second DVD, which is devoted entirely to bonus material). But when they finally hit the outdoor court, the doc starts to rock (never were a sport and a music style better matched than basketball and hip-hop, so it’s no surprise that Yauch’s use of tracks by Ludacris, Nas, Jay-Z, his own band, and many others, including Old Skool R&B stars like Kool and the Gang, is nigh on perfect). The game is by far the best part of the show, with great court-level fisheye shots and deft editing (including the use of slo-mo and sound effects); Bobbito is a hoot (a personal favorite among his nicknames: Kyle "Wireless" Singler), and it’s a close, exciting contest to boot. Among the other bonus material are deleted scenes, the players’ own home video footage of their trip to NYC, and even a section devoted to Beasley’s trash talk on the court. --Sam Graham
Trustpilot
2 months ago
3 days ago
