Wolves - Il campione

Greetings again from the darkness. Anthony is a good kid with a bright future. He's a star basketball player and a bright student, and has a loyal girlfriend and seemingly normal home life. It comes as no surprise that most of those elements either aren't as smooth as they seem, or are more complex than on the surface.

Writer/director Bart Freundlich (known for his 1997 debut feature The Myth of Fingerprints, and for being married to Julianne Moore) slowly unveils the cracks in Anthony's (Taylor John Smith) façade. His college professor dad (the always great Michael Shannon) is a drunk, abusive man with a short fuse and severe gambling addiction. He's the kind of guy who is always working on his great American novel, while juggling gambling debts and throwing down quiet jealousy of his son. His mother (Carla Gugino) has good intentions and clearly wants the best for her son, but she's just not capable of standing up to the menace. It plays like a Maslow's hierarchy of crappy parenting.

There are plenty of clichés that we've seen in many movies, but it's a pleasure to see so much real basketball being played. Anthony has a sweet jump shot and a sweet girlfriend named Victoria (Zazie Beetz), and the interpersonal relationships all have nuances that come across as real life. Even Uncle Charlie (Chris Bauer) seems torn about which family member most needs his protection. Emotional-physical-financial strains abound and it all seems to crash down on Anthony as he strives to earn a college scholarship by impressing the coaches from Cornell.

As Anthony navigates the choppy waters towards independence, the film teases us with some sub-plots that could have been further explored. Anthony hits it off with an older, wiser street baller (John Douglas Thompson) who starts mentoring him. We also are given hope that Anthony's mom will actually do something for her son rather than regretting what she hasn't done. Lastly there is a quick tease as to an alternative past that would make some sense – though whether that's real or imagined is left up to the viewer's perspective.

The film ultimately plays like a Disney film that utilizes an inordinate number of "F-words", and it even reminds a bit of the Paul Giamatti movie Win Win. It's the acting and the periodic sequences of real emotion that allow us to remain interested in the characters right up until the end … even if our hopes differ from one of Anthony's own parents.

I must admit all the main characters are done very well, especially Michael Shannon as the a-hole of a dad. He drinks too much, gambles unwisely, doesn't respect his college writing students, and treats his teen son badly. All this ultimately comes to a head and there really aren't any winners.

The son is the star of the basketball team, the Wolves. He has hopes of a scholarship to Cornell. But he has yet learned to take control in tough situations. Some street basketball in New York with some rough characters helps him grow.

Carla Gugino, one of my favorites, is effective as the mother.

My wife and I were entertained, but watching the family spiral down was difficult to watch. On DVD from our public library.

Shannon is great/ Not quite Rudy but still, great!

This is a good movie showing the human element very well. You have a family that isn't perfect, an addiction that causes significant consequences, and enabling. The acting is very well. Someone said it was B or a TV movie, they must have accidentally put a review in the wrong place for the wrong movie. The production is done well. Overall a very good story, I could not stop watching, and it was very entertaining. I would just like to know what happened after the ending...

Yes, a lot of cliches, Michael Shannon and basketball. And few pathetic scenes. >But a lesson about virtues, maybe too Americans, predictable in its unpredactibility, far to be awful but remembering better films about the same theme and political correct. Not convincing but just nice.