Delayed Reaction: Rebound

Premise: The story of legendary street baller Earl "The Goat" Manigault.

 

I've had my Netflix DVD account for over 12 years now. I refuse to get rid of it, because there are some movies that just don't pop up on streaming. I suppose I could rent from Amazon for about the same cost these days, but I still get a thrill out of the red envelope showing up in the mail. And, Rebound is one of the movies that I've had in my queue the longest. I'm not exactly sure why. I recall hearing the story of Kareem Abdul-Jabber calling Earl Manigault the best player he ever played against when he retired. That must've caused me to find this movie, and the fact that the film still barely has a presence on the internet clued me into the fact that it probably wasn't very good. It never felt imperative to see it. However, all good runs must come to an end, and Rebound finally got to the top of my DVD queue.

 

As expected, the movie is not that great. It's an HBO Films production from 1996. ER's Eric La Salle directed it and gave himself a role as a Vietnam veteran who lost his hands. It's immediately obvious that he's holding prosthetics. He's always got a long-sleeved coat and his forearms are twice their normal length. There’s only so much they could do about that, but it does reflect on the level of production we're talking about.

 

It's nice getting Don Cheadle for Ernie "The Goat" Manigault. This is not one of his defining roles though. It's laughable early on when he's supposed to pass for a 14-year-old. It's worse than pretending to buy Florence Pugh in the younger years of Little Women. Even when he's in high school it's a tough sell, and that's a significant portion of the movie. Then there's the goat skill. Obviously, Cheadle can't be trained to jump 6 feet or whatever, so some visual trickery is needed to make Ernie jump so high in the film. It looks a little silly though, with the obvious cuts. Our minds can unconsciously do the math. If we see the beginning of the jump that Cheadle actually does, we know it lacks the acceleration and power to get that high. I don't know the solution to this. I'm just here to pick at things.

 

So, the basketball in the film isn't that convincing. The drug stuff is a little silly (especially seeing it in a post-The Wire world). Cheadle is asked to play outside his believable age range. It's not bad for the HBO 90's house style. I have to forgive a little because of the limited budget and resources, but this is a story that's probably better told with a Wikipedia read and a little light internet digging. And there's the part of me that wonders if the movie would've been made a lot differently has it be made a couple years later when "The Goat" died.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend