More than a Game (Saturday, October 10, 2009) (144)

LeBron James is a totally amazing athlete and public persona. His basketball skills are unquestionably amazing and he is easily the most charismatic and dynamic athlete in America today - and one of the most marketable of all time. He is at once not too political or 'urban' for white folks, and also not too safe and Floyd Patterson 'yessir' for black folks. Clearly his decision to skip college rubbed many in the establishment the wrong way, but when you see him play now, that's easily forgotten.

This documentary, More than a Game, follows LeBron and his four high school basketball teammates from their pre-high school AAU team through their three Ohio state high school championships. We see mostly home video footage of the early games and then local and national television coverage as they the team grows up and gets more famous. There are interviews with the players and coaches in the present day looking back on their high school careers (now only six or seven years ago).

This is a interesting movie, because it would be very easy to only focus on James and his amazing ability on the court, but rookie director Kristopher Belman does a very good job of showing the other guys too. In fact - the way it's put together, it seems that in the early years, LeBron was not necessarily the clearest talent on the squad. But soon enough, of course, he separates himself from the other guys as the best player and the most photogenic and sellable.

The best thing that can happen to a historical documentary like this are some true-life writerly twists in the story. There is a wonderful suspense added to the film when the team loses the championship its junior year, or when LeBron is suspended for taking gifts during his senior year.

I would have loved a little bit more analysis about what happened to these guys after high school - that they either didn't go to college or they did go to college or they skipped college and why these things happened. It would have been interesting to get some thoughts from LeBron about why he wanted to forgo college ball and play in the NBA and what it meant to him that he knew he was going to play for his almost-home-town team (he's from Akron, so Cleveland is very close by). Yes, that might have been a different movie, but it would have been a slightly more complete ending than what we got (which was some simple titles about where they all went).

Stars: 2.5 of 4