Lenny Cooke | |
---|---|
Directed by | |
Produced by | Adam Shopkorn |
Starring | Lenny Cooke |
Cinematography | Josh Safdie |
Edited by | Benny Safdie |
Production company | Shop Korn Productions |
Distributed by | Under the Milky Way |
Release dates |
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Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Lenny Cooke is a 2013 American sports documentary film directed by Josh and Benny Safdie. It tells the life of the former high school basketball player Lenny Cooke. [1] The film had its world premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2013. [2] It was released in the United States in limited theaters on December 6, 2013. [3]
In 2001, Lenny Cooke is one of the top ranked high school basketball players. He expects to be selected in the 2002 NBA draft, but goes unselected. After having played in a series of minor leagues, he quits basketball. He resides near Emporia, Virginia with his fiancée and his son.
Adam Shopkorn, who set out to make a documentary film about a high school basketball player becoming the NBA player, followed Lenny Cooke around with several cinematographers in 2001. [4] Subsequently, he lost touch with Cooke. [4] In 2010, he went to a screening of Josh and Benny Safdie's film Daddy Longlegs and asked them to check the footage. [5] The Safdies agreed to join the project and started filming Cooke, which lasted nearly three years. [5] The film was shot by Josh and edited by Benny. [6] The Safdies took inspiration from the film Hoop Dreams, as well as the filmmakers Albert and David Maysles, Frederick Wiseman, Ross McElwee, and Shirley Clarke. [4]
In a 2013 interview with Complex, Cooke stated that he "enjoyed filming it." [7] He added, "Got some good points in it, got some bad points in it, but that's life and I hope the next generation of student-athletes take heed to it." [7]
The film had its world premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2013. [2] It was released in the United States in limited theaters on December 6, 2013. [3]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 78% of 23 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10. [8] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [9]
Odie Henderson of RogerEbert.com gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, writing, "Until the last section, the Safdies do a great job selecting and editing footage that tells their story intelligently and passionately." [10] Scott Foundas of Variety stated that "Despite the stop-and-go production history, the Safdies have created a seamless end product, even as it evolves from the crude analog video of the early scenes to the more polished HD look of later ones." [11] Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film an A− grade, writing, "Despite the odd nature of the project, Cooke fits nicely within the stable of characters populating the directors' work." [12] Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club gave the film a B+ grade, commenting that "It shares with their fiction work a ragged visual sensibility, a bittersweet worldview, and a low-key, moment-to-moment approach to drama." [13]