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Lenny Cooke
In this quintessentially American documentary, filmmaking brothers Joshua and Benny Safdie track the unfulfilled destiny of Lenny Cooke, who was the number-one ranked high school basketball player in America in 2001 but ends up going undrafted, and becomes a journeyman playing in little-known leagues across the world now.
24 February 1947, Hackensack, New Jersey, USA
October 28, 1983 in Fort Washington, Maryland, USA
20 February 1963, Leeds, Alabama, USA
23 August 1978, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
October 9, 1978 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA
12 September 1980, Shanghai, China
24 March 1984, Dallas, Texas, USA
October 2, 1982 in Hanford, California, USA
February 13, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
30 December 1984, Akron, Ohio, USA
16 November 1982, Lake Wales, Florida, USA
September 23, 1939 in Trafford, Pennsylvania, USA
29 May 1984, Brooklyn, New York, USA
11 March 1979, Cortland, New York, USA
22 September 1942, New York City, New York, USA
December 30, 2013
It's clear enough that even if his turns into a cautionary tale, his is also the story shared by many more kids than LeBron's.December 15, 2013
Lazy, fly-on-the-wall filmmaking. The Safdie brothers have the benefit of some rare extant footage, but absolutely no idea how to shape it into an interesting narrative.December 03, 2013
How could a top prospect drop off the map within a year? That's the cautionary tale spun by Lenny Cooke, a troubling, artfully constructed documentary.April 22, 2016
The Safdies have done remarkably well in resurrecting an old project, which although lacking in production value, simply needed to be seen by the world.December 05, 2013
It's a small film, but as a cautionary tale? Swish!June 10, 2016
The film's informed voyeuristic style ... allows Cooke's actions to speak louder than any words the often soft spoken protagonist might have shed on his life.December 05, 2013
It's a spirited experiment in documentary form, with the directors showing great imagination in their fusion of new and archival footage, and their portrait of Cooke, assembled largely from offhand moments, conveying a sharp dramatic sensibility.December 12, 2013
A compellingly unconventional, elliptical sports documentary that explores the mysterious realm of might-have-been.December 30, 2013
That the first half of the film is largely older footage (previously shot for an earlier project by Adam Shopkorn) endows it with wistfulness. No matter how merry the events, they're obviously distant fragments of a broken dream.December 05, 2013
Like a dismaying coming-of-age movie in which little is learned beyond the fickle chemistry between dreams and business.December 05, 2013
The question of why Cooke's career never materialized hangs over the movie, but is never answered. What emerges instead is a portrait of a talented teenager being readied ... for a future that doesn't arrive.December 19, 2013
Filmmakers Benny and Josh Safdie use real-time footage to follow this hopeful, affable young man as he becomes a bitter has-been over the course of a decade.