Friday, October 19, 2012

There's No Place Like Home

In late 2010, basketball founder James Naismith's original rules of the game were auctioned off by Sotheby's in New York City. Fearing this monumental document would end up in the wrong hands (most fearfully at Duke University), Kansas Jayhawks fanatic Josh Swade set out on a mission to raise enough funds to purchase the seminal record and return it to the place where Naismith coached for many years and instituted his basketball dynasty. "There's No Place Like Home" plays like a version of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" where Indiana Jones is now played by a smarmy, irritating, and overzealous cheerleader whose mission bears no significance, or not nearly as much as he bestows in it. Swade makes this latest "30 for 30" entry almost unbearable, which it would have been if not for its more even keeled participants (which include Larry Brown and Roy Williams) and some interesting (albeit very limited) history. The film never backs up its argument in favor of the record setting bid Swade achieves  and comes off the same in the end as it does in the beginning: as an entirely unworthy charitable endeavor.