From: Polygram UK Average Rating: Binding: Audio CD Format: Explicit Lyrics, Soundtrack, Import Label: Polygram UK Number of Discs: 1 Release Date: September 03, 2007
Amazon.com essential recording: True hip-hop heads, get happy. Public Enemy, with Flav, Griff, and the Bomb Squad, are back. The seminal group's first album in four years serves double duty as the soundtrack for Spike Lee's wack-ass He Got Game, and as you'd figure from the film's B-ball theme, many of the rhymes are directed at the world of sports. Numerous tracks contain direct barbs at NBA commissioner David Stern, while "Politics of the Sneaker Pimps" aims its fury at the major shoe companies and their exploitation of foreign workers. True, longtime fans might have beef with PE's more Puffyesque moves, like obvious samples (Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" on the title track) and choirs, but there's no denying the rage of the message. Against PE's legacy, this disc might fall a bit short. But taken on its own terms, He Got Game gets nothing but net. --Amy Linden
Really? Good movie if your my generation basketball fan brings me back lol. They actually offered the role first to Allen Iverson who turned it down!
Inner strife and self hatred are the worst enemies This film shows the real crossroads where the Blacks are in America, and I say the Blacks because they call themselves Blacks and not Afro-Americans or African Americans. The mother is dead, killed accidentally in a temper but the father. The father is in prison for a very long time. The son hates his father and has to learn how to get over his hatred. The daughter is missing her father but her brother is isolating her. The uncle and aunt only see the money the son represents. He is a high school star in basketball and he can get directly into making a lot of money if he joins the NBA or he can go to some university and have a scholarship. One more tricky element: the governor wants the kid for the team of his university, the one he sponsors and likes. So why not use the father, give him a week of semi freedom and force him thus to negotiate his son's signing the right papers. What's more the basketball star is invited by some schools to come and visit and there he is provided with everything he may desire, including the girls and the useless other entertainments. The NBA is offering a car to the uncle, though in fact it is for the son to run it. And the high school coach is able to put ten thousand dollars on the table for him to join, guess what, the NBA of course. Immoral. The film is saved from this muddy marshlandish country by the son choosing the only moral solution, the one that will help his father to get out faster, the one that is going to cure him from his hatred, even if that is slightly idealistic, frankly utopian.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Lee Got Game "He Got Game" is another solid outing for director Spike Lee. He paints a realistic picture of life for a inner city basketball phenom and its many demands and pressures. Ray Allen isn't as proficient an actor as he is a shooting guard, yet his performance works here. Denzel Washington and a supporting cast of Lee film veterans deliver in their roles, making up for any inexperience Allen has. Washington is impressive as Allen's father, a convicted felon who is given a short work release to try to convince his star son to attend the governeor's alma mater. Revisiting this film about 9 years after its release, I still feel entertained and connected with the main characters. I feel it stands as a triumph for Lee and a good tale of basketball, exploitation, wounded family relations, and redemption (in a way).
Wish I saw it in the theater I actually caught this on television when I was flipping channels one day. I didn't even plan on sticking around but this movie kept me watching. The reason why I didn't give it a chance in the theater was because I was growing weary of Spike Lee's style of film making. I thought I'd give it a break and I didn't know anyone else who actually saw this to endorse it. Watching it on tv meant that it was censored so I rented the original version and liked it even more. Denzel is awesome as usual, but the story itself and the trials of the main characters were thought-provoking and interesting. I know a lot of fathers like the one in this film who pushed their child hard. The son ended up living up to his potential so I guess it felt justified. I would've liked this film even if was a sport I didn't like. This is definitely worth a look.
Excellent Hip Hop Soundtrack to Spike Lee film! He Got Game-- "He Got Game" is the hip-hop music soundtrack album to the Spike Lee-directed, Denzel Washington-starring film. It is the first movie soundtrack to feature one rap act exclusively--in this case, genre pioneers Public Enemy. The first Public Enemy album in four years (since 1994's Muse Sick N Hour Mess Age), what is also notable about the album is that members of Public Enemy's founding producers, the Bomb Squad, return to oversee several tracks. The concept album explores the dark side of professional basketball culture and its toll on the largely African-American players in its ranks: The pressure from family, friends and especially big-business interests, leading to what Chuck D calls "a house built off of them skulls and bones" in "House of the Rising Son". The title track is a great meld of hip-hop & classic rock: it samples Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth" and features a guest spot from Stephen Stills himself. Some of the other great songs include "Go Cat Go!" (produced by Meat Beat Manifesto's Jack Dangers), "Game Face" (which hijacks Monty Norman's James Bond theme), "Unstoppable" (with guest vocalist KRS-One) and the gospel-style hook of "What You Need is Jesus". Flavor Flav's bouncy spotlight track is the self-explanatory "Shake Your Booty". The closing track is the spoken-word piece "Game Over", where Professor Griff muses on behalf of the frequently-criticized `hip-hop ballplayer': "Yeah, I got an attitude; How'd you figure?"
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