Review: High Flying Bird

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Professional athletes have increasingly been fighting to control their own public image, take for instance kneeling football players, and combating the commodification that results from signing a contract. This concept is explored thoughtfully in Steven Soderbergh's "High Flying Bird," a 90-minute sports drama quite unlike any you've probably ever seen.

In fact, there's exactly one scene in the film in which a sport - in this case, basketball - is seen being played, and that's on a few quick flashes of a YouTube video. The picture is primarily set in the board rooms, living rooms and restaurants where sports deals are made and the real "game," as the film's lead character, Ray (Andre Holland, of "Moonlight"), says is played.

In the film, Ray is struggling to stay afloat during an NBA lockout. Ray is the agent for several basketball players, most notably number-one pick Erick Scott (Melvin Gregg), a self-proclaimed street ball player, and he has been told by his "indispensable" assistant (Zazie Beetz) that she's taking a new job. Meanwhile, his boss (Zachary Quinto) tells him that his expense accounts have been frozen, prompting him to try to put pressure on an NBA union rep (Sonja Sohn) and the head of the owners group (Kyle MacLachlan) to do something to end the lockout.

In between, Ray spends his time meeting with the mother cum agent for Erick's rookie competition to attempt to convince her to let him represent her son or dropping in on an old mentor (Bill Duke) who runs a basketball camp. Ray hatches a plan to draw some attention by setting up Erick and his rival to show up at the basketball camp and play one-on-one (hence, the YouTube video).

In the Soderbergh cannon, Ray is similar to Danny Ocean or Jack Foley, George Clooney's character in "Out of Sight." He's a fast talker who is always one step ahead of everyone else. In "High Flying Bird," he is trying to find success outside of the "game behind the game," as Duke's character puts it - in other words, a business in which white sports team owners control the lives of the black players they sign. To drive this concept home, there are some interesting interviews interspersed throughout the film with real players, such as Karl Anthony-Towns and Donovan Mitchell.

The film has a sharp and witty script and looks pretty damn good, considering that it was shot, much like Soderbergh's recent "Unsane," on an iPhone. The director has long been one who has favored experimentation and dabbling in different filmmaking formats. "High Flying Bird" could be categorized among Soderbergh's experimental side projects - for example, "Bubble" or "The Girlfriend Experience" - but it's closer in quality to his high profile films, such as "Traffic" and "Sex, Lies and Videotape." It's well worth a watch.