Viewed in
2010
Premise
As part of ESPN's 30 for 30, Steve James attempts to get to the bottom of Allen Iverson's high school trial in 1993.
Liked
The Steve James angle.
Thoughts
I am unsure if I liked this film or not.
On one hand, there was a lot of missing information. Many key players of the trial, including Iverson himself, could not/would not interview for this documentary. On the other hand, if you interpreted this to be more about race and sports, rather than Iverson or his trial, then the experience was thought-provoking.
The film was educational for me. Before this, was not even aware of his trial and conviction in high school. Not only did I learn about Iverson's background, but also the racially-uneasy neighborhood of Virgina, even three decades after the Civil Rights movement. His emotional graduation definitely showed a human side of him.
Due to the lack of important, detailed testimonies, the interviews were a hodgepodge of bits of information from mostly bystanders. While the documentarians did keep the story chronological, the individual chapters were hard to follow. They interviewed a lot of different people from all sorts of angles. I appreciated the thoroughness. Unfortunately, each chapter basically was a splattering of single paragraph commentaries, often jumping between people of different opinions, and I had trouble keeping track of who everyone was, and their points of view.
What saved this documentary was the fact that the director, Steve James, came from the same hometown as Iverson. Even though James was limited in telling the story of Iverson, he was able to delve into his own story, and his community's story, regarding race in sports. These parts was quite interesting. One interviewee called him out, telling him that he was incapable of telling this story, simply because James was white, while Iverson was black. As we learned about the people in the neigborhood, so did James. There was a nice exchange between James and his black cameraman asking if either wished they were of a different race. Even his mother had stories to tell, having taken a role in school integration.
The way I saw it, James wanted to focus on the trial, with his personal experience as a minor subplot. Since that was not going to happen, it became an intertwining tale of Iverson, James, and the racial overtones of their community. Watching this, I did not get a lot of answers, but in a way, the silence made an undeniable point. The issue of race in America (especially black athletes) has not gone away, and neither has people's fear of talking about it.
Note: may not be suitable for younger audiences, due to the straightforward, frank use of racial slurs.
What I would change
Rearranged and spaced out the individual commentaries for each chapter. If they statements were grouped together, and given more time, I might have understood the nuances of what this story had to say.
Personal
Simmons promised that this documentary would change how I would view Allen Iverson. It did not. Probably because I never hated nor loved him. He was not a tattooed thug who ruined basketball. Nor was he a role model of the sport. I had basically seen him as a greatly-talented and extremely passionate basketball player with flaws on and off the court. Nothing about him was simple. Coming out of the film, it did not really change how I felt about Iverson, other than a better understanding of his past.
