Slamma Jamma

No lead-burying here:  I was actually pleasantly surprised by this film.  It came out of absolute nowhere, presenting me with but a single poster proclaiming its NBA Jam-esque title and a vague association with the Christian faith.  The “notable stars” listed atop its IMDb page include Michael Irvin (yup, the NFL Hall of Famer) and Jose Canseco (yup, the MLB slugger best known for his steroid abuse and tell-all book), alongside people who have hardly ever acted before (if ever, as is the case with the lead).  It’s fucking called Slamma Jamma.  Slamma.  Jamma.  How could I not find out if it was, indeed, the shoes?

Just look at that poster.  Gold, Jerry, gold.  And that tagline.  Fantastic.

So, this thing centers on one Michael Diggs, a former collegiate basketball phenom.  Seems while he was hoopin’ it up for USC, about to return for his senior season (against the wishes of his sleazy agent (played by Irvin, naturally)), he unwittingly got caught up in a robbery/murder, sending him to prison.  Years later, he’s released, forcing him into a tough world where it’s hard to land a job (tell me about it…), his mother is gravely ill, his brother has fallen in with a gang, his erstwhile fiancee has shacked up with his former friend/teammate, and he’s constantly reminded of the former glory he let slip through his fingers.  Redemption, though, looks to find him on the court in the form of a dunking contest.  Yup.

The primary issues with this thing are the acting, the script, and the direction.  Like I said before, most of the actors involved have barely done anything, and this is the lead’s first credited role.  Irvin is especially frighteningly bad as the agent with loose-at-best morals, delivering his lines as though he’d never been in front of a camera before (despite years and years of on-air commentary for ESPN and the like) and vacillating between scenery-chewing and -blending.  Canseco’s appearance is basically a cameo wherein he plays up the arrogant, smarmy persona we’ve grafted onto him (not inappropriately so, I might add), adding nothing close to value to the proceedings.  Everyone else is wooden, barely involved, and unable to deliver any line with anything close to anything.  The background extras make the stars look bad, dammit!  The one exception is Michael Cognata, who plays the leader of the gang that has ensnared the younger Diggs boy, and who actually seems at least halfway invested in his role, even if he over- and underdoes things in every scene.  I’d make some crack about the acting as a whole being high school-level, but, having seen much better out of an actual cast of high schoolers not that long ago, I don’t feel like insulting the youths.

All of this crappy acting is exacerbated by a script that actually could have been written by a talentless high-schooler, one who’s been ostracized from fan-fic sites for lack of ability.  The lines are hackneyed at best, there is mindless repetition (one of the ways we know time is passing is thanks to everyone greeting Diggs with some sort of “Hey, when did you get out of prison?” remark and Diggs responding with the appropriate length of time), and there is an abundance of hanging action left dangling in the breeze like so much strange fruit.  For example, a good chunk of the first act is taken up by Diggs playing pickup b-ball with the neighboring folk; one of the games introduces a handful of characters, each looked down upon in turn by the other ballers.  One is a shorter-than-average dude who really wants to dunk; one is a talented young lady, the victim of mild court sexism; and one is a little person.  Each one forces the detractors present to eat a shoeful of crow and look to be set up as actual characters, but they barely ever show up again.  I swear, I thought the chick was being set up as a replacement love interest for Diggs, seeing as his former mate was shacked up with another man, but, no, she only shows up later on to jog with him during his training.  And then there’s a random exchange during the ultimate contest between one of Diggs’s friends and a so-called “sports critic” (I think we call them commentators where I come from), wherein the critic is called out for never having played a sport, a strange jab at film critics, I reckon.  None of these “characters” do anything beyond showing up judgmental tools, and that message is still mainly underlined by Diggs’s arc, rendering them even more inconsequential.  Just a bunch of padding, they are, much like the seemingly endless scenes of the dunk contests, which are portrayed as watered-down and relatively boring versions of And 1 mixtape tour footage.  The director focuses too long on pointless characters, pointless events, and all at pointless angles that show very little skill with the camera.  It’s journeyman work at best, incredibly amateur at worst.

Thing is, despite all of the ineptitude, this flick isn’t as bad as recent religiously-themed efforts.  Some of the dunking is actually pretty solid and entertaining, but it’s the way that the Christianity is handled that works for me.  Sure, the antagonists (such as they are) are set up as props against living an amoral life, but the way the main character goes about his day, plenty of contemplation and prayer, is not depicted obnoxiously, and those who believe differently are not made out to be downright demonic.  Instead, we see a righteous man going through life and succeeding, bolstered by his faith.  Take notes, Pureflix!

By no means is this a good movie, but if you want a simple watch, some laughs (admittedly at the expense of the film itself), and some flashy dunking … well, I’m not sure where else you could turn, now that I think about it.