Ledger Pop Journal - Celebrity News & Sports

Overall Great - 4.5 out of 5 beams. - Ain't no better basketball movie than this boys-to-men documentary about LeBron James and his brothers-in-hoops. Also a brilliant and touching portrait of half a dozen contemporary African-American males, it can be enjoyed equally well by non-basketball fans.

"More Than a Game Review - 'Brilliant' (Image: WENN)

Part of its brilliance is that King James – the superstar LeBron became – commands no more than a fair share of screen time, his story being intertwined and equally compelling as those of his teammates and their coach. Another part of its brilliance however is the phenomenon that is LeBron: his equanimity, his rootedness, his passing. The movie’s final share of brilliance is that it is a spectacularly shot and cannily crafted documentary that uses basketball to tell larger stories.


Dayton native Kristopher Belman famously asked to film LeBron and his teammates starting when they began their high school careers, capturing priceless footage of practices, bus rides, time outs, and national championship locker room speeches. He’s spliced this amazing archival footage in with contemporary interviews, TV outtakes from the likes of ESPN, and return visits to childhood bedrooms.

The film includes mere snippets of game footage, somewhat akin to how the TV show Friday Night Lights uses football games more as backdrops to human stories than as dramatic centerpieces. That said, the game footage is AMAZING, especially in showing the development of LeBron as a physical force, lockdown defender, team leader, and most notably as a passer of Magic Johnson-like panache.

More on the film and the full review here at WikPik.Com