Gunnin' for that #1 Spot: Critic Reviews

A funkier, shallower version of 1994's Hoop Dreams, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's doc follows eight high school basketball phenoms as they head to Harlem's asphalt mecca, Rucker Park, to take part in 2006's Elite 24 tournament.

Gunnin' for That #1 Spot is an on-the-fly record of a memorable moment in basketball history.

This is just a dull promotional video.

Adam Yauch, Beastie Boy turned documentarian, turns in a crisp, insightful, but emotionally distant look at the best high school basketball players of 2006 with Gunnin' for That #1 Spot.

As each player's run through the same routine-hometown meet-and-greet, biographical sketch, hasty interview-the burden of the formulaic structure starts to wear.

A cool look at superstars-to-be paying respect to Harlem's Rucker Park on their path to hoops greatness.

It's a fly-on-the-wall look at eight prodigiously talented kids hooking up to play ball in the big city, and as such, it's a great deal of fun.

It's as much a snapshot of the contemporary basketball scene as it is a love letter to the famed uptown court.

As sports movies go, Gunnin' never feels the slightest bit hokey, and serves up SportsCenter-worthy clips in high style, along with the unmistakable feel of real life.

Although it isn't a particularly deep look at the world of pressures and performance anxieties faced by high-school phenoms, Gunnin' is a welcome treat to anyone who follows the game closely.

After the gimmicky audience-shot concert film "Awesome ... ," Beastie Boy Adam Yauch proves he can make a comprehensive, state-of-the-art docu of interest to basketball aficionados.

The film is well shot and edited, backed with a bouncy hip-hop soundtrack and full of pep.

Director Adam Yauch tricks up this eclectic look at all-star high school basketball with so much cool high-def camera work and showy editing it's sure to satisfy the film's target youth audience's appetite for zippy visuals and swift pacing.

The extraordinary athleticism and skills of these teenagers, all prime prospects for eventual NBA stardom, makes this a game you really want to see.

Spot provides the basics with foot-tapping, head-bobbing flamboyance, providing the viewer with a serious helping of heart, soul, and scorching basketball action blended up into a taut, explosive documentary.

Unlike the 1994 basketball doc Hoop Dreams, which investigated collateral issues of education, race and money, this merely sets a twitchy hip-hop soundtrack to an unenlightening parade of eager sporting wannabes.

OK, so it's not quite as searching as Hoop Dreams, but it's hugely enjoyable all the same and boasts - as you'd expect - a terrific soundtrack.

A ho-hum basketball documentary.

Although this is never less than watchable, you can't help feeling that it would have been a better film if they'd waited a year or so and actually included details of the players' futures.

A spunky, impassioned and resourceful doc on the cutthroat world of US college basketball made for a pittance by Adam Yauch.

The slow-motion footage of these athletes showing off their macho skills is generously underpinned by rumbling hip-hop. Great nightclub wallpaper.

Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's basketball diary is of limited general appeal.

As a tribute to the game and its accessibility to all, Gunnin' is hard to beat.

At the heart of everything there's Yauch, directing with remarkable authority for someone who's pretty new to the director's chair.

To concentrate on the film you have to be a basketball fan, or just a basket case.