It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

from the same director as "when we were kings," but much less focused and not as good...though, i must concede conquering the subject of a single fight is much easier that the love and history of an entire sport. a variety of subjects are interviewed - from streetballers like john hammond and pee-wee (forgot his last name) to phil jackson and kobe bryant (a bit laker-centric i thought). it gives the viewer a good overall look at the history and culture of basketball and stays fairly objective - showing both positive and negative sides of the culture and not taking sides when it comes to the old-school/new school or street/nba debates. hoop dreams is a better film with less of a focus on the history of basketball, but gives a more personal look at the effects of basketball culture. oddly it also manages to keep the scope rather wide despite focusing mainly on just two up and coming basketball players. B-.