Hoop Dreams (Steve White, 1994): USA

Reviewed by Byron Potau.  Viewed on DVD.

In 1994 director Steve James’s documentary, Hoop Dreams , was a sensation and touted as a possible Best Picture nominee.  It would have been the first in Oscar history for a documentary.  Sadly, the film did not even get a Best Documentary nomination, but did change how the voting was conducted in the future.  The film is about two young, black, inner city boys who also have high aspirations: making it to the NBA.  Their journey is filled with peaks and valleys, and their triumphs are not always the ones we expect.

Beginning in the projects of Chicago, a scout for the privileged and predominantly white private school, St. Joseph’s, spots two boys on the city playgrounds, fourteen year olds Arthur Agee and William Gates, that he feels have the skills to take them to the next level.  The two boys are wooed by St. Joseph, the same school that produced NBA star Isaiah Thomas, and they each get a partial scholarship to the school, making a three hour trip each day from their decaying neighborhoods to the school.  Thus begins their long obstacle-filled journey toward the NBA, which could be their only hope of escaping the poverty that surrounds them.  The film tracks them through their high school career and through their struggles as they fight through injuries, poverty, family difficulties, drugs, teenage pregnancy, crime, and other adversities.
The film’s success in 1994 was well deserved and is deserved more still.  It stands as one of the finest documentaries ever made and an eye opener to the struggles of black inner city families as well as the many boys in similar predicaments who dream of making it to the NBA to escape the poverty and urban decay around them.

The two boys, Arthur and William, are instantly likeable and we cannot help but root for them.  We become engaged in their struggles and the struggles of their families.  From William’s brother Curtis who blew his chance at the NBA because of his ego, to Arthur’s best friend Shannon who is on a destructive path, the film is filled with fascinating personalities.  The film is not just about basketball, but also a family’s struggles to survive, to stay together, to graduate, to overcome addiction, to forgive, to resist peer pressure, to resist crime, and to prevail.  Life’s drama unfolds in such an entertaining, heartbreaking, and uplifting way that this film cannot help but be an inspiration and a revelation to those who see it.