High Flying Bird

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.

Not a sports movie, not a basketball movie, and it was boring and nothing actually happened to all characters in the movie. just a guy with smart thinking tried to end the NBA lockout ... OK but why should this be a movie? and why it has so high rating i cannot understand...

Soderberg's latest experimentation with the iPhone focuses on a struggling idealistic player agent during an NBA "lockout". You may wonder how so small a camera manages to capture or at least replicate the drama of fast-paced sporting action, particularly the pinnacle grandstand moment of that ole rags to riches sports tale. Without spoiling anything, let me tell you it doesn't. Or more to the point, High Flying Bird is less concerned with the sport of basketball itself than it is with "The game on top of the game".

Instead of an arena, the game is played out in offices and instead of action, there is dialogue. Considering the constrained budget and production schedule, it is a testament to the cast and to the screenplay that the film holds together at all. And yet it does. The performances are naturalistic while the story moves along at pace, generally eschewing exposition.

In keeping its focus narrow, centring on a small cast of characters, Tyrell Alvin McCraney's screenplay cuts to the core of issues of race and power in the NBA without a whisper of melodrama. In fact, considering the wider story it is telling High Flying Bird remains upbeat and inherently promotes a message of positivity.

High Flying Bird will not be for everyone, it could be accused of being a little dry. However it is an intriguing experiment in film-making which finds a new way to tell a story which needs telling.

Popping up on Netflix with their usual amount of pre-publicity (ie, virtually none), it's strange to think that a Steven Soderbergh movie can be dropped on the masses with little fanfare. But this is the streaming world we live in now. Styled somewhat as the basketball version of Moneyball, this fast-talking drama delves into the big-money business side of the sport - "the game on top of the game" - during a patience-testing lockout. Heavy on dialogue and light on explanation, Tarell Alvin McCraney's script is frustratingly oblique and borderline pretentious. The passion is clearly there, especially about bringing the sport back to its roots, but when everyone talks in riddles it becomes hard to care who wins and who loses. Soderbergh directs with minimal fuss, the entire film being shot on an iPhone (albeit with a relatively hefty post-production budget). He injects a few panning shots and scene transition effects, but otherwise lets his actors do most of the heavy lifting. Andre Holland (Moonlight) is decent as next-level agent Ray Burke and Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2) is charismatic as his eager offsider, however it's Hollywood veteran Bill Duke (Predator) who shines brightest as an aging, old-school youth basketball coach who is endearingly stubborn. Unfortunately those on the other side of the equation, such as Kyle MacLachlan's team owner and Zachary Quinto's corporate higher-up, are one-dimensional stereotypes; disappointingly low-hanging fruit for the movie to target. There's a great movie - or better yet, a stage play - in here somewhere, but in its current form High Flying Bird is exasperatingly inaccessible.

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.