uncle-drew-movie

Uncle Drew

If you (like me) are a big movie fan and a huge basketball fan, then you (like me) are probably frustrated by the dearth of good basketball movies. And then maybe you give a movie like Uncle Drew a little more leeway than most films with what it can get away with. Maybe you recognize how much more important it is that Uncle Drew gets the basketball right, more so than it does the overall art of cinematic storytelling. Maybe it helps that the movie casts actual professional players (all hall of famers, future hall of famers, and Nate Robinson) instead of professional actors, and that seeing the actual beauty of basketball athleticism is superior to wrapping the game in a tight narrative thread. Maybe it helps that Uncle Drew understands – more than any movie since Space Jam – that the grace of basketball falls between the traditionalist view of teamwork and the mythology of the superstar. That both of these theories have to coexist – the star can’t win without the team, but the team has no chance of winning without the star. Maybe it doesn’t matter how benign the film’s message is, or how sloppy and infantile the humor becomes, or how simply bad Kyrie Irving is as an actor. Maybe all that matters is that is gets basketball right, and that the only people who could truly enjoy it are b-ball junkies and eight-year-old kids. Maybe that’s exactly the spot Uncle Drew wanted (and needed) to land, an audience-and-family-friendly space, that still manages to make time for the sport it loves. The movie has lots of love to share, and I was more than happy to partake.

 

Directed by Charles Stone III