Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Synopsis: Since the age of 9, Sebastian Telfair has been one of the best-known basketball players on the streets of New York. At the start of his senior year at Lincoln High School, while his friend LeBron James is making history with a $90 million sneaker deal and NBA contract straight out of high school,... [More]
Genre: Sports/Recreation
Starring: Sebastian Telfair
Valuable not because of sebastian Telfair's ultimate triumph, but because of how effectively it contrasts his achievement with the plight of so many other aspiring athletes for whom the fantasy of a pro career ultimately fails to materialize.
Sebastian has the nice-guy charisma of Derek Luke and he's easy to root for
You know a filmmaker has done his job when his movie appeals even to people who couldn't care less about the subject.
An entertaining and compelling account of that year, even though most basketball fans will already know the ending.
It doesn't have the pathos of the best sports documentaries, but Through the Fire does what ESPN wanted it to do.
Hock's most illustrative footage is of the dazzling, sophisticated action found on today's high-school courts; the most obscene shows the execution of 18-year-old Telfair's $12 million endorsement deal with Adidas.
Not just a story of a person but a story of a neighborhood, a city and a plan to escape.
It's a pleasure to see the articulate, disciplined Telfair succeed where so many other young men have failed, but ultimately his path to success is so smoothly upbeat that there isn't much urgency to it.
Stylistically, it plays like an ESPN profile more than a serious documentary, but the issues and drama is all real enough -- and so is the big-league money.
Even if the outcome is already known by those who follow basketball, Through the Fire makes for a suspenseful movie with an emotional climax that exceeds any fictional screen treatment of sports heroism.
It’s a must-see proposition for fans of basketball and a fairly riveting bit of social and economic history for everyone else.
[Through the Fire] seems willing to beg off the tough questions in exchange for access.
Top Critic
With a real-life athlete as talented and charismatic as Coney Island hoop prodigy Sebastian Telfair, almost any outcome would probably have made for good drama, but Hock lucked out when life provided a happy ending.
Top Critic
An up-close, engaging and ultimately moving look at Telfair's family, his final high-school season and his decision to forsake college for the NBA.
Through the Fire fails to show indignation that rich white guys are trying to get even richer at the expense of a naive black kid from the ghetto.
[A] superb, ultimately exhilarating account of Coney Island basketball phenom Sebastian Telfair's senior year at Lincoln High.
IGN.com |
GameSpy |
Comrade |
Arena |
FilePlanet |
ModCenter |
GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox |
Planets |
Vaults |
VE3D |
CheatsCodesGuides |
GameStats |
GamerMetrics
AskMen.com |
Rotten Tomatoes |
Direct2Drive
IGN RSS Feeds
Comment
