Lenny Cooke

A woefully erratic documentary, Lenny Cooke follows the title figure as he attempts to live up to his potential as one of the most sought-after teen basketball players in the country. Filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie deliver a periodically compelling yet mostly disposable endeavor that contains exceedingly little to embrace or get excited about, as the picture, which runs an often interminable 88 minutes, suffers from an almost total lack of an entry point for viewers without any real interest in or enthusiasm for basketball – with the especially uninvolving first half, which is often akin to watching someone else’s home movies, suffering from a proliferation of scenes and sequences of a decidedly less-than-enthralling nature. (This is especially true of an astonishingly pointless interlude in which Lenny and his friends watch the NBA draft.) It’s clear, then, that Lenny Cooke benefits from a smattering of intriguing moments and a final third that’s actually more poignant and moving than one might’ve anticipated, although there’s little doubt that the picture is, even during its more overtly successful stretches, saddled with a meandering feel that does, in the end, negate its positive attributes – which ultimately cements its place as a misfire that could only have worked as a short.

** out of ****