Rating: 
Originally published April 21, 2000
Give Love and Basketball points for taking hoop dreams out of the 'hood and kudos for lavishing as much screen time on its girl athlete as the boy.
But that's not quite enough to forgive all the moves and manipulations the film embraces to try to live up to the connection made in its title. Love and Basketball is divided into four quarters (although its bloated running time is enough to persuade you that a couple of overtime periods have been slapped on).
The structure allows us to follow Quincy McCall and Monica Wright as they pursue their love of basketball from elementary school through college and the pros.
They live in an upper-middle-class African American neighborhood of Los Angeles, so this is one basketball movie that is not about striving to escape the problems of the inner city. In this case, a passion for basketball is the bond that holds Quincy and Monica as they fall in and out of love.
The third quarter, which bridges the difficult transition from high school stardom to college teams where the other players are just as talented, is by far the strongest in Love and Basketball. It's also the most frustrating, because the movie touches on such timely issues as the pressure to turn pro and take the NBA money without ever scrutinizing the situation in depth.
Gina Prince-Bythewood, who wrote and directed Love and Basketball, is more interested in a commercial crowd-pleaser. Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan are attractive and accomplished leads, but they have a hard time holding audience interest in their relationship in a film that drags on long enough to deserve a delay-of-game call.
