High Flying Bird

This is a rather boring movie. But hey, some might like it. The issue I have with this film is that in reality, this film could be shot for $100k. Not the $2 mil if actually cost. There is nothing special in it, it feels like the run of the mill indie film, but there were no special scenes that would require lots of money to produce. As for the actors, the director could get cheaper ones. If you want to make an iPhone movie, do it cheap. $2mil is an astronomical budget if you're shooting with a phone.

This film just doesn't tell the story well. I don't understand what it is about, and the fact that all the characters talk in a cryptic manner complicates the matter further. The film had good production, but is boring and frustrating because I don't know what it is about.

There is very little basketball to be seen here - in fact I think there's only one scene where any characters actually play ball. But that lack of on-court action is the very point & purpose of the movie; the plot is driven by an NBA lockout wherein the players are being denied the opportunity to play the sport they love (and get paid for it), all because the "Powers That Be" feel they aren't making enough money from it themselves. This is a very real issue in modern sport, and this film seeks to confront many aspects of it; from the rich insular Establishment of western societies in general, to the very concept of human endeavour becoming a commodity for profit. And as the majority of NBA players are black and the owners white, the movie doesn't shy away from the issue of race either. Comparisons with slavery may seem heavy-handed, but the reality is that these black athletes' livelihoods are completely at the mercy of rich white men; their blood & sweat turned into dollars to fill their owners' pockets. These are big, political issues atypical of your standard sports movie - anyone expecting a "gutsy underdog" story or a heartwarming tale of redemption through hard work & team spirit, will be sorely disappointed. This film is all about social commentary and witty dialogue, and the intentionally-underwhelming ending is clever yet pragmatic. There's no Rudy or Coach Carter to be found here; the central character has lofty ideals, but realistic expectations - he knows he's always playing someone else's game, and the rules are rigged against him. High Flying Bird feels real, modern and urgent, in stark contrast to the feel-good dreamy nostalgia of most sports movies. Soderbergh makes his point well, and always delivers technical excellence in his filmmaking, so your appreciation of this film will depend entirely upon how interested you are in the issues it presents. But it feels like something of a landmark moment in the sports movie genre.

There are obviously parts and scenes where you can see Steven Soderberghs technical virtuosity, the stale camera angles, or the slowly moving wide shots. It feels like a very professional movie, ironically shot on an iPhone. The acting itself also is quite convincing.

But I could not get anything out of this movie. It's a movie about basketball, that has no basketball in it. It has an idea but it does not have characters. You don't care about the characters because they simply aren't engaging. They don't have organic character arcs, or come to a satisfying conclusion. The script is fine, but mostly doesn't help the movie become compelling or interesting in any way. It just.. moves along.

There is one main message. Basketball leagues are controlled by white capitalists, although black people are the main players. The idea behind "beating" this game over the game may be interesting in itself. I left this movie with nothing, except the feeling of having seen some clever shots and some politics. But it should have been more of a documentary instead of a 90-minute drama.

Netflix movies are continuing to disappoint.

Lots of dull opaque talking in "High Flying Bird" to ultimately turn contract negotiations between millionaires and billionaires--not exactly "Norma Rae" (1979) this, let alone worthy of all the salvery references--into Steven Soderbergh's favorite genre, the con or heist flick, which in this case mostly boils down to a character revealing and reveling in how much smarter he is than are others and some message that pertains to a very select number of people, the professional black athlete. Documentary interviews with NBA players interrupt the drama, too, to lend advice to rookie basketballers. Makes me wonder why this is streaming on Netflix and not exclusively at NBA Orientation Days. For whom is this movie supposed to be?

For director Soderbergh himself, perhaps. He's one of the brightest at exploiting the fundamental importance of the cinematographic apparatus within his oeuvre--even being his own cinematographer, editor and so on. His breakthrough film, after all, listed a medium of motion pictures in its title, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" (1989). If anyone is going to make movies with a phone camera that are indirectly about making movies with a phone camera, it'd be him. I haven't seen "Unsane" (2018) yet, being generally not in a rush to see movies shot with an iPhone, but I have seen his latest phone heist of some of Hollywood's top actors, "No Sudden Move" (2021). There, the camera was fit with a distorting wide-angle lens that reflected visually the narrative involving automobiles--and did so by way of the reflective device in cars, the rear-view mirror. It may also allude to the past obfuscation involved in the genre plotting and its historical setting.

It follows, then, that Soderbergh may've shot "High Flying Bird" as a comment on another industry, that of making movies. Nominally, the narrative concerns undermining NBA owners by way of new technology and forms of communication to bring basketball to its fans and, thus, wrestle away control for the players, or their agents. Congruous for an independent movie shot with a mobile phone and released on Netflix, if not for the racial issues it raises as written by Tarell Alvin McCraney (also of "Moonlight" (2016)). He doesn't even show us the film-within-the-film, the one-on-one basketball game, because this isn't about a movie, or the story in it, but about how movies are made. The suggestion is that Soderbergh is changing the way the game, or rather the game on top of the game, is played.

He may be right. The anti-studio, anti-actual-film progenitor of a new era of independent and digital cinema has been before. Hopefully, at least, these phone movies will become better looking--that Soderbergh will not overlook keeping a shaky shot from the table that apparently holds the phone stand being bumped, or a distracting and odd-looking lens flare in another, and get better lenses in general. Everything is in focus in these shots, which is distracting, as anything and nothing consequently become the focus. As if the drama for millionaires weren't already irrelevant enough, too. And, I like meta movies generally, but this one seems overly self-satisfied looking in the mirror--the cinematic equivalent of a selfie.