A “Major League” Meltdown
June 16, 2009Stallworth to Enter Plea Deal, Face 30 Days
June 16, 2009The U.S. debut of Kris Belman’s film documenting the rise of the “Fab Five” basketball players from Akron St. Vincent St. Mary’s was held Monday night at the Silverdocs Film Festival in Silver Spring, MD in front of four sold-out theaters. Denny was on hand to witness the event and offers up his film review here. This is the first of three pieces WFNY will run about the film. Parts two and three will follow tomorrow and Wednesday.
Six years ago we all heard of the juggernaut of a basketball team that was hooping it up at SVSM. We knew about LeBron James, the kid who outdueled Carmelo Anthony in a game against Oak Hill academy as a junior. We knew that they moved their games to the University of Akron arena to increase seating capacity for home games. We knew a bit about his teammates, but it was largely LeBron and his supporting cast (hey, that sounds familiar). Luckily for us, there was someone along for the ride – and that someone had a camera.
Filmmaker Kris Belman has spent the better part of seven years bringing this film to fruition from his first day of filming. The result is an honest, largely hype-free look into the lives of five friends. The film begins with the preparation for the team’s final game, and then goes back to the beginning, with home video tapes of AAU basketball games shot in anonymous gymnasiums all around the country. The boys talk about fundraisers – where they tried every fundraiser they could think of. Tidbits arise, such as duct tape being a great fundraiser, and setting up shop outside of a liquor store gaining the most income. As the film rolls on, Coach Dru Joyce II takes us through the beginnings of a touching story about friends becoming men together and sharing the joy of basketball.
As the film progresses we are introduced to the five boys that it centers around: Dru Joyce III, the undersized point guard who struggles to establish a healthy relationship with his father, who also coaches the team. Sian Cotton is the big boy of the group – very close with his older brother, who pushes him to become the best he can be. LeBron James is the only child of a single mother, whom he is extremely close with even as they move numerous times during his formative years. Willie McGee is the quiet one, who moved away from a broken home in Chicago to live with his oldest brother, who just graduated from the University of Akron. Later on in the story we are introduced to Romeo Travis, who joins the team their sophomore year of high school but struggles to fit in with the four close friends who “are like sisters, who buy each other birthday gifts at 16 years old”.
As the players mature, it is apparent that they have talent. Dru came in off the bench as a freshman in the state championship game and hit seven three pointers. LeBron and Romeo are amazing athletes who can do most anything on the court. However, as they move along, they become complacent and lose the title their junior year. They come back with a renewed sense of urgency and win the state and national titles as seniors. None of this is new information – as fans of Northeast Ohio sports, we all know this. The magic of this film is the honesty and the level of comfort the subjects have with each other and with the filmmaker.
Edited into the storyline is commentary by each player and Coach Dru, telling their story as it unfolds. The piecing together of video and text, audio and still photography (which isn’t really still but animated ever-so-slightly to give it life) keeps everything fresh and in focus. Not only are the characters sincere, the visual and audio meld together to enhance the story. We don’t just see five boys grow up. We see them experience highs and lows that we all remember from our time in sports. We all know what is going to happen in the end, but it doesn’t matter because we care about what they are saying right now.
The film isn’t perfect – although the soundtrack does a great job of conveying the attitude and spirit of the subjects it is portraying, I thought there were times when it got in the way. The film wasn’t meant to be a highlight reel for LeBron, yet many times that’s where the focus went. Game films were clipped into a Sportscenter-like amalgamation of dunks and posturing, which didn’t convey the joys of winning.
One thing the film truly does show is the growing of the character of LeBron. Early in the film he is playing the game extremely well and showing some emotion. Later on, the showman begins to grow – to a greater extent than he shows off and postures today. We also see the maturing of the boys, especially Romeo Travis, as he begins to not only become friends with the others, but also begins to slightly soften his emotional shell.
The film is very well done in my opinion, and is definitely worth checking out. For those in DC, it will be showing again Sunday evening at 7:00 PM at the Silverdocs Film Festival in Silver Spring. For movie trailers and more information, visit www.morethanagamemovie.com. There is more info on their Twitter feed. More Than A Game starts showing in Cleveland, NYC, and LA in early October.
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WFNY would like to send out a big thanks to Minjae Ormes and everyone at Silverdocs for getting our attention about the festival and helping us out with press access. We’d also like to thank the people at Lionsgate for helping set up interviews.
Photo Credit: Dennis Mayo, WaitingForNextYear.com
19 Comments
Hmmm…may have to hit this up on Sunday
Just finished interviewing the filmmaker Kris. He said (among other things) that the dunkapalooza that was put in was to show the increasing cockiness of the players. It worked. I redact my problem with said dunking, as it was used as a film tactic. Well played sir.
LeBron did not out duel Carmelo as you stated above. Unless when you say out dueling Carmelo you mean scoring two more points and losing the game, then yes, he did out duel Carmelo.
@ #3 – well, I just went with what the doc showed (which was an admittedly biased view – it was produced by LBJ). I didn’t do my homework, but that little snippet wasn’t the focus of the article. It’s a good doc. Take it with a grain of salt, but it’s well done. Very honest and mature reflections by the guys, especially Romeo. I was really impressed with how far he’s come along since the time when the film was made.
Stop with the nonsense about Kobe having a better supporting cast than Lebron. Lebron has 4 all-stars on his team: Ilgauskas, Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, and Mo Williams. LEBRON HAD FOUR ALL-STARS. Kobe only had one: Pau Gasol. KOBE ONLY HAS ONE ALL-STAR TO HELP HIM.
The difference: Kobe makes his teammates better by drawing the defense and getting his teammates easy shots–layups, dunks, putbacks. Lebron, with 4 all stars can’t. All Lebron can do is drive and dish to a teammate for a difficult 25-30 foot jump shot. Lebron is nothing more than the latest Vince Carter. His physical skills will deteriorate in the next couple of years and we’ll never hear about Lebron Carter again.
And that’s the downside to being linked by ESPN…..
Wow – thanks for reading the article. I said nothing about Kobe. I didn’t even allude to Kobe. I mentioned Melo, as an opponent in a basketball game they both played in when they were in high school. I never compared LeBron to anyone. In fact, in the film LeBron said he had part of his photo collage on his bedroom wall dedicated to Kobe.
But, as you said – Wally is an All-Star. Obviously he’s better than Lamar Odom, especially at this point in his career.
Thanks for coming by, ace.
I could create the best team ever if I got five allstars from the 80’s out of retirement according to that guy’s logic. If Ben Wallace and Wally are considered all stars then I just can’t argue with you. And I really LOVE to argue.
I still can’t get over that Roger Bacon game.
@ Cursed – re: Roger Bacon – I don’t think LBJ has gotten over it. Talking with Kris today (check back for the interview tomorrow, plug plug plug) – he seemed to think that game really helped shape LeBron and the other guys. You could tell they got their focus back their senior year, whereas they were really playing foolishly and with too much swagger their junior year.
“Talking with Kris today (check back for the interview tomorrow, plug plug plug) – he seemed to think that game really helped shape LeBron and the other guys. You could tell they got their focus back their senior year, whereas they were really playing foolishly and with too much swagger their junior year.”
Interesting. I went to LeBron’s 5th game as a high schooler and probably attended about 9 is freshman year overall. That team really played hard, they had another D-1 kid that went to Dequesne (Ali Sambali) and played the run and jump like no other. (Was Romeo on the JV team that year? I remember them having a stud athlete on JV).
By his junior year, I really noticed a team that bought into the hype too much (I’d probably be the same way). Perhaps some of that gets placed on Dru Sr? Would Damrot have let that happened? Who knows.
Incidentally to this day, some older folks still tell me they think Clark Kellog was a better high school baller. Can anyone really say that? I obviously didn’t get to see CK.
Romeo came into the mix as a sophomore. He didn’t attend STVM until then. Took him a while to fit in with the crew – they were the ‘fab 4’ until their junior or senior year, when they brought him into the mix and dubbed themselves the ‘fab 5’.
Dru II said that he was unsure about how to coach the team, and actually hesitated to do so at first. A lot of the film centers around the father/son vs. coach/player relationship between Coach Dru and Dru III. I don’t want to ruin things for everyone, but there’s a lot there. It’s really one of the best parts of the film IMO.
[…] I posted a film review of the Kris Belman’s STVM documentary More Than A Game, which had its US premiere at the Silverdocs Film Festival in Silver Spring, MD. In said review […]
Well done Kris. It is great that you were able to make this film and not some outsider that knows nothing about the area.
[…] Film Festival. In case you’re late getting here, to gather context you can catch my review of the film from Tuesday and Wednesday’s interview with the filmmaker. After the screening of the film on Monday […]
[…] check out Denny’s three-part recap of his attendance at the US premiere of More Than a Game here, here and […]
[…] of Denny’s three-piece documentation of the U.S. Premier in The District, they can be found here, here and […]
Hey is it true that the documentary may be released in wilmington ohio where technicolor is? Heard that svsm may play whs in agame then release the movie in wilmington just wondered if this is a rumor or a true statement.
[…] I recommend reading some of our past articles about the film – I did a three part set with a film review, interview with the director Kris Belman, and an after-party/discussion session […]