Hoop Dreams (1994)
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Hoop Dreams Movie Review
Hoop Dreams is a 1994 documentary film directed by Steve James. It’s a solid, but admittedly overrated doc.
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“That’s why when somebody say,
“when you get to the NBA, don’t forget about me”,
and that stuff. Well, I should’ve said to them,
“if I don’t make it, don’t you forget about me“
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It follows the lives of two inner-city Chicago boys who struggle to become college basketball players on the road to going professional. This movie was ignored by the Academy, which led to a public outcry. It was a huge box office hit and it remains one of the most respected documentary features of all time, particularly acclaimed by Ebert himself. It’s so admired that I had honestly expected much bigger things from it.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a solid documentary, but far from a great one. I am not a sports fan first and foremost, so this type of project was never going to appeal to me properly. And most of the film is focused on the sport of basketball with overwhelmingly numerous scenes that follow the action on court. Those sections were overlong, boring and they hindered the pace of the film significantly.
With that being said, Hoop Dreams is deeper than it initially seems. It’s about chasing your dreams and what it’s like trying to make it in the sports world for sure, but it also very much deconstructs the idea of the American Dream and how evasive it is for most people as evidenced by the film’s subjects not ever making it in the NBA. The movie is also about the toughness of this business and the greed that drives it as we see people scouting new players from a very young age. It’s about race and class too, but only touching those issues on the surface.
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Gates and Agee are quite likable throughout the film. It is easy to root for them and to empathize with their struggles. With that being said, the movie should have focused even more on them as I didn’t quite feel as if I really met them. That is especially the case with their support as the family elements are quite rushed here. The entire movie is way too long at almost three hours, but it focused on the wrong things way too often, resulting in a lack of depth and interest for me most of the time.
Hoop Dreams is a solid documentary, but an overrated one. It’s so renowned, but in actuality it felt overlong, badly paced and nowhere near as insightful as it could have been. The movie is about basketball, but also about the elusiveness of the American dream while it also touches upon race and class, but only on the surface as these issues should have been better tackled. It’s a moving, very well made doc, but one that was never fully engaging to me due to its staggering length.
My Rating – 3.5
This is the fourth film in my documentary movie marathon where I will cover one film per decade. Next up are the 2000s where I chose Grizzly Man. Keep an eye on that one as well.
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