Spike Lee's new movie is like all of his old movies; all over the place and edited with a chainsaw. HE GOT GAME is the latest effort in Spike's Jazz Filmmaking. Highly improvisational, stylized and startling in it's usage of color, sound and light. It's also a damn fine reminder of how good movies can be when it's a genuine auteur instead of a merely competent craftsman behind the camera.

The opening montage is a beautifully shot sequence of kids playing basketball. To the strains of Aaron Copland (!?), Lee makes it clear his notion that basketball is the true American game, played by blacks and whites, young and old, males and females. All you need is a ball, something mounted high enough to shoot it through, and the love of the game, which Spike clearly has.

The story of HE GOT GAME revolves around Jesus Shuttlesworth (Milwaukee Bucks guard Ray Allen) attempting to decide which college he's going to take his devastating game to. His father, Jake (nicely played by Denzel Washington,) is serving time in Attica prison for the accidental murder of his wife and Jesus's mother. The son has written his father out of his life and never speaks to him. Jake is offered a deal by the warden to get Jesus to sign a letter of intent to attend the governor's alma mater in exchange for a shot at early release. Jake eagerly agrees and the building blocks are (apparently ) neatly in place.

But things are never neat in a Spike Lee movie. There's subplots up the wazoo about back-stabbing relatives, greedy girlfriends and coaches running con jobs to get Jesus to go pro or attend one basketball program over the other. Spike gets a bit righteous over the exploitation of athletes by sports agents and big colleges.

This [same Spike Lee] is a guy who has helped make Nike the biggest name in pro endorsements while the shoe giant exploits their foreign work force to produce overpriced status symbols for inner city black youths.

Lee has set himself up for accusations of throwing stones in a glass house.

If there's one thing nobody is worried about it's the poor, underpaid pro basketball player. It would be intriguing to see how Jesus fares academically, but that's a scene we never get.

At the heart of the matter [as presented by the film,] is the question, "Will Jake and Jesus put aside their differences and become father and son again?" That conflict interested me more than what school Jesus ultimately decides to attend. In a sequence where Jesus visits fictional Tech U. For a recruiting visit, the coach (John Turturro) fawns over Jesus and actually prays, "for God to deliver Jesus to us." To further the enticement, Jesus finds himself the object of the affections of the white campus cuties and later doing the horizontal bop with a pair of silicone-grown blonde bimbos on a waterbed as they coo, "Ohhhhhh,,,,JESUS!!!!!"

It's a heavy-handed scene --- and like the subplot of Jake trying to score with a prostitute living next door to him in a cheap hotel --- an unnecessary one, in This Writer's opinion. Milla Jovovich's character is named Dakota Burns, but just as might as well been entitled, "The Proverbial Hooker With A Heart of Gold," as it's written as pure cliche.

At the heart of the picture is Denzel Washington's performance. He stops HE GOT GAME from flying off in the direction of either of Lee's previous feature film duds. Washington is too established as a good guy to be credible as a cold-blooded killer and in flashback it's established that his killing of his wife, Martha (the luminous Lonette McKee) is a tragic accident.

Lee has said he cast non-actor Allen in the role of Jesus because he wanted the basketball scenes to look like the real deal. Not a bad move. Though he strains to convey emotion without looking for the drama coach at the edge of the frame, Allen is convincing in his unrelenting anger toward the father figure.

HE GOT GAME is, at times, preachy and weighed down by one too many subplots.

EVERYBODY is trying to ride the kid to a big payday and nobody's motives are pure. The cynicism of the first two hours is undercut by a really cornball finish that ties things up way too neatly.

Well, it is a Touchstone Films production, so the "Mickey Mouse" finale is just way too tidy in light of the previous goings-on. Without revealing the end, let's just say you'll believe a basketball can fly even higher than Air Jordan.

Ultimately, this may be the movie that reminds us why Denzel Washington is one of the most enjoyable and likeable guys in films, even if he won't take his shirt off and sports an Afro that the Jackson 5 would have been proud of back in the day.

It's always tempting to wonder, with Spike Lee flicks, if this will be "the one" that garners both box office success and popular acceptance from his contemporaries. Lee's body of work has still not merited a Best Picture or Director nod on Academy Awards night, and he still can't command the mega-budgets that decidedly lesser directors get for their projects. In a better world that would change for Spike, but I don't get the feeling this movie is the one that makes Hollywood open their arms and embrace him as one of their own. Spike remains the outsider who is tolerated far more than he's accepted.

I've got no stars, thumbs ups, or rants and raves for HE GOT GAME. It's just a solid and all around pleasant way to spend some time in the dark. It's good Spike, but not great Spike. Bringing new life into the career path of Denzel, the music of Aaron Copland, and revitalizing rappers Public Enemy , are all positives in Spike's favor. I'm going to see the movie again today with the hope that a second serving will clarify the fuzzy parts of the film for me.

The fact that Lee's movies can't just be viewed, they must be understood , is still a signature element in his filmmaking.