Big Lo, Seattle's self-proclaimed Biggest Sports Fan, described Friday night's premiere of Sonicsgate, directed by Jason Reid, as a funeral of sorts for Sonics fans. The sold-out theater was full of green and yellow, and it was obvious this wasn't your typical Seattle documentary crowd.
The crowd cheered through the first half as the Sonics' early years were relived, but it turned into mostly boos and groans in the last half, which retold in excruciating detail, the story of how the team ended up being moved to Oklahoma City.
As I expected, the movie looked and sounded great, and they had a ton of great interviews. Since most of this story happened behind closed doors, this is almost entirely a talking heads documentary, but Reid managed to get all the interviews he needed to really make us feel like we were there.
Some of the most interesting clips were the opposing attorneys for the City of Seattle and for the Clay Bennett Group, dishing out details on what went down in the final trial that would've decided whether or not to hold the Sonics to their lease for two more years.
This film does a great job of telling the story, but towards the end it loses focus a little. They let a couple of the interviewees ramble--Sherman Alexie talks for a couple of minutes straight about how basketball players are like Greek gods, and they go a little too deep into some legal technicalities with the attorneys.
In the Q&A, the filmmakers said they took out a section about the "shared history," or how the OKC Thunder basically now own all of the Sonics' history as their own. I think that was a mistake. The editor, Darren Lund said in a Seattle Times article
I believe that people should—especially at the end of the film—feel like we got screwed. Like Sonics fans here got screwed. And it's sad."
The shared history part wouldn't really driven that point home. The first part of the film built up the idea that the Sonics and Seattle are inseparable, and that the Sonics are a part of Seattle's cultural fabric. Showing that not only the team was taken, but that history was taken as well would've rounded out the film and given it some closure. Depressing closure, yes... but closure nonetheless. As Percy Allen puts it in the same Times article, "There's no resolution [to the film]." Ending with the shared history could've been that resolution that the film needed.
Overall I think this is a good film, that could be a great film with a little re-edit. And while I think it's great that they're giving away this film for free online, I almost think it's too bad that they're not shooting for a theatrical release first, because I think this has the potential to do well.
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