For the third time, Spike Lee has teamed up with Denzel Washington, and they're great together. To me, they belong together like Scorsese and De Niro. Denzel plays the father and Ray Allen (of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks in his feature film debut) plays the son. He does an okay acting job, but it's not that demanding anyway. Rosario Dawson (of "Kids" fame) has the role of his girlfriend and Jim Brown (in a role that can be called "scene-stealing") is one of the parole officers who keep an eye on Denzel. Supermodel/actress/hottie Milla Jovovich plays a hooker in the movie, and I think that she's somewhat miscast. Still, she does a fine acting job, and it's always nice to see her in a movie.
Spike did something unusual in "He Got Game." Rather than use a composer, he used songs from "Public Enemy" and selected music from the works of Aaron Copland. It worked beautifully. Being a "Public Enemy" fan (and thank you Spike, for helping to bring them together again), I look forward to buying the soundtrack, but I hope that it includes some of the Aaron Copland stuff.
The cinematography was handled by Malik Hassan Sayeed, whose done DP work on "Girl 6" and "Clockers," two other Spike Lee films. Some of the lighting schemes in "He Got Game" are very reminiscent of the ones in "Clockers," but I liked it. He and Spike work well together and there are shots in the film that can easily be considered pure art.
"He Got Game"
has it's flaws, including scenes that are totally unnecessary (including
the scenes with Milla Jovovich, but I'm glad they were there). They aren't
HUGE flaws, though. Spike kicks ass.