People always say to me, “when you get to the NBA, don’t forget about me.” Well, I should’ve said back, “if I don’t make it to the NBA, don’t you forget about me.”

Hoop Dreams, directed by Steve James, is a documentary that chronicles the lives of two young African-American high school students as they dream and aspire to become professional basketball players. Some of you may already be telling yourself that a sports documentary about basketball is not your cup of tea but hang on a minute because you don’t need to love basketball to enjoy this incredible film. Roger Ebert called Hoop Dreams the best movie of the 1990′s after all. Do I have your attention now?

More than a sports documentary, this is may well have been the first reality show ever filmed. With more than 250 hours of footage and shot over more than 5 years as the two teenagers make it through high school, Hoop Dreams is as gritty and unpredictable as real life. The documentary shows the everyday life of William Gates and Arthur Agee, two African-American teenagers living in one of Chicago’s most dangerous housing project: Cabrini Green. Both are standouts basketball players and the sport is everything to them. More than a recreational activity, it is their ticket out of the ghetto if they can be one of the select few who make it to the professional leagues. Not only are they fully invested in that quest but everyone around them is also putting all their hopes and expectation on their adolescent shoulders.

As the film starts, both William and Arthur are scouted and recruited by St. Joseph, a Catholic prep school in upscale suburbia land outside Chicago. From the start, we can see that Gates seems to have a more promising future. He is more physically ready and blends in quickly, starting for the varsity team as a freshman and making the academic honor roll. Many people already compare him to the school most famous alumni –NBA player Isaiah Thomas– and he is coach Gene Pingatore special project. Agee, on the other hand, struggles both on the basketball court and in the classroom. Pingatore once reproaches the lanky, skinny Arthur “When are you going to grow?” After a tuition increase the next year threatens both boys abilities to attend the school, William gets financial assistance from a school booster. However, in one of the most revolting event of the film, we soon learn that Agee is kicked out of the school in the middle of the year after his family falls behind on his tuition payment. Would that have happened had he shown more on the basketball court? Very doubtful.

Coming just short of 3 hours, Hoop Dreams somehow manages to keep you riveted throughout. We initially worry that Arthur may be the one who might get in trouble because of poor academics, goofy behavior and a less stable family structure. However, there is a quiet strength and resilience burning in him that starts to come to the forefront as he matures. Will there be some payback time in his future? William’s world is turned upside down when he suffers torn cartilage that sideline him for weeks. From that point on, he struggles with being a good-but-not-great player stigma and starts to realize there is more to life than playing a sport. The basketball highlights are well put together but Hoop Dreams is so much more than a personal basketball diary on film, the movie is a stunning view into the life of the inner-city underclass and is at his best when we spend time with the many characters surrounding Arthur and William.

There is Bo Agee, Arthur’s father who is seen playing basketball with his son on the playground one moment, and the next, hustling drugs with shady people in plain sight of the camera. Bo even abandons and then returns to the family multiple times during the course of the movie. There is William’s older brother, Curtis, who was once a high school basketball star but was unable to achieve his goal of becoming an NBA player. He is now living vicariously through his younger brother’s career. There is William’s infant daughter and his girlfriend, his absentee father who suddenly shows up after a 3-yr absence, Arthur’s best friend Shannon who is taken in by the Agees after he runs away from his own home, and his new high school coach Luther Bedford. All of these characters aren’t your usual cardboard cutouts but real people with their own stories, worries, flaws and personalities.

”Do you all wonder sometime how I am living?’ How my children survive, and how they’re living? It’s enough to really make people want to go out there and just lash out and hurt somebody.”

The two boys show incredible strength of spirit despite all the problems they are facing. Those are two kids with the odds stacked against them. After Mrs. Agee loses her job, the Agees live on $258 a month in aid and we witness first hand what it means to be at the bottom of the social ladder. In one of the most memorable scene of the film, we witness the Agees sitting in the dark after the utility company cuts their power and gas. When, toward the end of the film, Mrs. Agee, who put herself through school, finally gets accredited as a nurse with the highest grade in her class, you can’t help but be moved to tears. This is real drama, with fully fleshed out characters and unpredictable lives, the kind of things that the very best fictional movie strive for. This is not the oversimplified welfare moms and threatening gangbangers so often depicted in mainstream fictional Hollywood movies. Give yourself the chance of seeing how some of the most underprivileged people in America live and aspire to the American Dream. You won’t regret it.

An engrossing, heartbreaking and unforgettable documentary, Hoop Dreams is not so much a film about basketball than it is a snapshot of inner-city life that you absolutely cannot miss.

A

For More Information: Where are they now? (Washington Post)

Notes: Rated PG-13 for drug content and some strong language, 170 minutes. Produced by Catherine Allan, Peter Gilbert, Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Gordon Quinn, directed by Steve James, cinematography by Peter Gilbert, a Hartemquin films release.