I watched this film for one specific reason: It had long since held the top spot on the IMDb's Bottom 100, which I held was utter and complete bullshit.
After watching the film, I still contend that fact.
Yes, it's mediocre. Yes, it's unbelievably cheap-looking and doesn't make much of an attempt to hide it. Yes, it's poorly-written, poorly-acted, and predictable. Every moment is utterly obvious, and despite nominally being a "basketball" movie, there's exactly three basketball scenes, and between the opening and closing scenes, and they were all shot fairly poorly.
Anthony Mackie and Wesley Jonathan are fairly stupid basketball players (Mackie has troubled making simple addition, Jonathan has a scholarship to UCLA and plans to become a doctor, but gets immediately captivated by an attractive gold-digger). Mackie showed charisma and silent menace as Papa Doc, the de facto villain of 8 Mile, but here, he's one of many completely wasted by the terrible script)
Anyway, the following things happen, sorry to spoil it for you: A man lets his friend down because of some ho, a sleazy agent attempts to get a man to ruin his dreams, a man loses his scholarship because of said ho and said agent, and finds out ho's baby is actually the villain's (played by real streetballer Hot Sauce), a man gets a debilitating injury, and inspires his friend to triumph (in slow motion, of course), when all looks lost...It most certainly should have been direct-to-video, and despite its obvious flaws, I think it deserves a 3.8, not a 1.8.
It sucks, but not that much.
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