THE documentary “More Than a Game,” about LeBron James’ high school basketball team, is like one of those five-minute featurettes on star athletes deployed to soak up time on the pregame show — expanded to a paralytic length.
James, whose Catholic private school in Ohio was (you will not be surprised to learn) the best in the country, is at the center of an astoundingly incurious documentary that intersperses clips of his teams’ games with the blandest conceivable interviews with him and his teammates.
They shared a bond. They gave 110 percent. They were like family. Got that? There’s no “I” in team. But there are two in stultifying.
Who these young men and their coach are is a cipher. James says he doesn’t know where his father is — who is he? James also says there were times in his life when his mother would disappear for stretches and he wasn’t sure she’d still be alive when he woke up in the morning. Why? What were her problems?
What level of jealousy or awe might attach to playing beside a man who is shortly going to be immensely wealthy is unexamined, nor do we learn what it’s like to be the hired guns at a school that might be less welcoming if you couldn’t play ball, nor is there anything but the vaguest hint given about the players’ off-court crises, family lives, girlfriends, education or nonathletic aspirations.
There isn’t even any inside information about the game: The coach says “the difference between a good basketball team and a great basketball team is attention to detail.” Such as what? Not every basketball movie can be “Hoop Dreams,” but every basketball filmmaker should at least have seen it.
Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG (profanity, smoking). At the Empire, the Lincoln Square, the Magic Johnson, others.