Movie Review

3 Pages 763 Words

The wonderful thing about dreams, like hope, is that everyone can nurture their own, and there's no cost. It's taking the next step -- transforming those wispy ideals and half-realized wishes into reality -- that demands a price, and sometimes a high one at that. Hoop Dreams, the tale of two high school basketball players, is less a story about the sport than it is a chronicle of life in the inner city and of following Aldous Huxley's advice that "a man's reach should exceed his grasp."

Traditionally, documentarians know the endings of their films before they start shooting. This is not always the case, however; Hoop Dreams is an excellent counterexample. Like other features filmed as the events take place (such as Michael Apted's excellent Seven Up series and 1992's Brother's Keeper), this picture has a legitimate dramatic structure that is equally as compelling as a scripted slice of fiction.

Hoop Dreams follows two Chicago youths, William Gates and Arthur Agee, from their Freshman year of high school to their first year of college. In addition to documenting the inevitable on-court maturation process, the movie illustrates the difficulties of balancing sports with scholastic and family pressures. Neither William nor Arthur are advanced academically, and both suffer through a variety of away-from-school crises.

At the start of Hoop Dreams, when William and Arthur are 14, each appears to be a solid prospect for recruiting by "white" suburban basketball powerhouse St. Joseph High School and its legendary coach, Gene Pingatore. Arthur has the quickest step one talent scout has seen in five years, and William looks like the "next Isiah Thomas." One point explored by this film is that no matter how "can't miss" a prospect is, and regardless of their level of talent and enthusiasm, most of them, in fact, fail. Being the star of a high school team does not guarantee a trip to the NBA, and realizing this represents a rude awakenin...