FILM REVIEW: Thought-provoking sports movie taps into the dark side of basketball
Technological innovations helped give this film and fresh and distinctive look and feel
Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, High Flying Bird, is a sports movie that does not have the usual nostalgic and motivational feel-good tone that most sports films tend to have. Instead of sentimentality, we are shown an underbelly of professional sports. We see how athletes are exploited in their prime years and then thrown out when they cannot perform as they used to, or are ostracised when they do not conform to the long-standing culture of their sport. Soderbergh attempts to show us what needs to change and how this change can be brought about. High Flying Bird tells the story of a sports agent named Ray Burke, played with fierce momentum by André Holland, who is trying to bring an end to a lockout: a process where athletes are on strike to get a fair share of the money made from their labour from the owners of the National Basketball Association (NBA). This is the longest lockout in history and Burke has to do something drastic to end it with favourable terms for the players. Wi...
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