The opening shot of the film shows the West Loop area and the downtown loop area of Chicago with the Sears Tower in the background, as the Blue Line L train moves toward the underground part of the L system and the Eisenhower Expressway.  Today, the West Loop area is an up and coming area with newly built condos and ever increasing property tax, as is much of the area around the immediate downtown area.  However, ten years ago much of  this area had high poverty rates where many kids dreamed of playing themselves away from poverty through basketball.  In Hoop Dreams the audience gets to follow two teens William Gates and Arthur Agee through five years of struggle where they try to achieve the dream of getting away from the poverty and violence in their neighborhood.

William and Arthur were scouted for private schools located in the suburban area of Chicago, a very different world compared to the Cabrini Green Housing Project where they grew up, as both of them were excepted to St. Joseph High School.  Through the first year the audience learns that William starts on varsity team as a freshman and many compares his talent with former St. Joe's player and former NBA star Isiah Thomas.  For Arthur things are not going so well, but he makes the freshman team where he has some success.  When the freshman year comes to an end both William and Arthur face some financial difficulty.  William gets help from some of St. Joe's booster club members while Arthur who does not have the same talent as William finds himself being forced to leave St. Joe's, as he cannot pay for the tuition increase.

Basketball is everything to William and Arthur, but the story also offers an intricate view of the socioeconomic environment and how this affects psychodynamics of their families and neighborhood.  It offers several opportunities for the viewers to experience how Arthur's family is cooping with the difficulties of losing their jobs, separation between the parents, and Arthur beginning in a new school.  It is a tough journey that Arthur must go through, but he has no choice as poverty keeps him from returning to St. Joe's.  Besides Arthur's difficulties William faces other hurdles, such as an injured knee and having a child.  This story goes into great lengths on illustrating how this injury affects his whole persona and how he is involved with his newborn baby.

Hoop Dreams brings a vision of what these two young men, Arthur and William, desire, but it also shows the struggle they had to encounter due to lack of opportunities as middle school and elementary school students.  These missed opportunities originate in poverty, which consequently leads to a number of missed functions in life such as structure, parental guidance, and safety.  This was not because the mother's in the film did not care, because they did.  However, there was a consistently missing male role model for both teens.  Thus, Arthur and William had to tread a much longer path in order to achieve the same goal, as they must quickly learn how to become young adults without proper guidance.  It is a hard and long journey that they both had to venture, and as a viewer of Hoop Dreams I am ever so grateful for having the opportunity to watch both Arthur and William together with their families go through ups and downs in life, which offers a greater appreciation of life.

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COUNTRY

USA

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