HIGH FLYING BIRD (2019)

Steven Soderbergh, a veritable moviemaking machine, wastes a pretty good idea in this largely overlooked NetFlix streamer.   Or is it scripter Tarell Alvin McCraney, freshly Oscar’d for MOONLIGHT/’16, who blows it, loading up on ersatz Aaron Sorkin ping-pong rhythmed dialogue that comes across as time filler?  Maybe it was the decision to record the whole shebang on a fancy i-Phone which gives a fish-eye lens look to almost every shot no matter how many high-end Manhattan buildings Soderbergh glides us thru.  Oh well, here’s that pretty good idea: a long term pro-basketball strike is hitting everyone in the pocketbook, especially just signed rookies who’ve yet to get on court.  Super agent/NBA powerhouse André Holland figures out a big-time money-raising loophole for him & newbie star clients who have their first checks cut, but still held in escrow and so don’t have to abide by NBA or Players’ Union rulings.  Stage one-on-one face-off matches and sell them like pro boxing prize fights in arenas and streamed on (why not?) NetFlix.  Think of the pent-up demand!  But the business talk is insufferably circuitous (shot in sunny offices that overload that iPhone camera lens and inadvertently silhouette the actors), b-ball action is nil, and the only truly sympathetic/interesting character is the great Bill Duke, a famous retired player who runs a youth sports program.  The film just the sort of thing a die-hard basketball fan might sit thru when a six-month league strike is going on.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  *Instead of looking for better Soderbergh, why not look at one of Bill Duke’s more underappreciated films.  Just hitting 80, still actively acting & directing, he’s best known for Urban Crime films and a lot of quality t.v. series work.  But try and find THE KILLING ROOM/’83, an early film made for PBS on the beginnings of the Chicago Meat Workers Union and how racial issues affected things around the WWI era.  Why Duke never gets mentioned as a pioneering Black filmmaker is beyond me.  Maybe he was just too good to need that sort of special pleading.