Benji (2012 film)

Background

In the 1983-84 season, Ben Wilson was named National Junior of the Year and recognized by ESPN HS as the top high school basketball player in the nation for the class of 1985. As a junior, he led Simeon to the Illinois state championship. The following year, with transfers like Nick Anderson joining the team, Simeon was set to defend its title, and Wilson—like fellow Chicago South Sider Jabari Parker—was preparing to lead his team as the presumed best player in the country.

Wilson experienced a major growth spurt in high school without losing agility or coordination, similar to Anthony Davis. Directors Coodie and Chike, known for their music video work including Kanye West's "Through the Wire," later made a film about Wilson. At the time of the shooting, Coodie Simmons was a 13-year-old seventh-grader from Beverly. Wilson was killed after an altercation near Simeon, becoming the 669th homicide in Chicago that year.

Thousands attended his wake and funeral, a collective grieving for the city. In the aftermath, public awareness, renewed activism, and improved emergency response laws contributed to a drop in Chicago's homicide rate. Wilson remains a symbol of Chicago youth striving for athletic greatness. Derrick Rose wore Wilson's number 25 at Simeon, and Parker had the number stitched into his sneakers during his own time there.

Synopsis

This film documents the November 1984 death of Wilson, who was regarded as the best basketball player in the country but was shot the day before his senior season of high school basketball was to begin and died the next morning. The film documents the cultural ripple effects of his life and death, including the contemporaneous impact on those closest to Wilson, such as Anderson, and the long-run influence on Chicago's youth, such as Parker. Billy Moore, the young man who fired the shots that killed Wilson, appears in the film to give what he claimed was the first time he got a chance to tell his side of the story.

Others appearing include Erica Murphy, who was friends with both Moore and Wilson and was present at the shooting; Sonny Vaccaro, who ran the camp where Wilson impressed observers enough to be ranked top in the nation; Wilson's brothers Curtis Glenn, Anthony Wilson, and Jeffrey Wilson; rapper Common and singer R. Kelly, both of whom grew up with Wilson; WMAQ-TV's Warner Saunders, who was among the first to receive news of the shooting; Kenneth Malatesta, the Cook County prosecutor who tried the case against Moore; and Isaiah Gant, Moore's attorney. Jetun Rush, Wilson's girlfriend and mother of his child, was contacted but declined to take part.

Critical review

Neil Best of Newsday stated that the movie packs the emotional punch expected of a story about the death of a high school basketball star that rocked Chicago in 1984 and that the directors capture the sad story through effective use of archival video and compelling interviews. ESPN HS/ESPN.com writer Lucas O'Neill stated that the directors assembled an impressive collection of friends, family members, writers and celebrities to tell Wilson's story, noting that critical junctures included Anderson's receipt of the phone call with news of the death and Parker's appearance as almost a new incarnation of Wilson.

Mina Hochberg of Outside described the story as both inspiring and haunting and said the documentary is too rhapsodic, with Wilson's legacy easily preserved without so much mythologizing, though it effectively captures a wistful sense of what-if. IndieWire stated that the film embodies the spirit of the 30 for 30 series and noted that the doc inadvertently takes some sting out of his death, that chasing the murderer unmoors the documentary, and that while it tends to wander, it is hard to fault the filmmakers for closing all the loops, making for a tale not quite as uplifting and satisfying as it seems at first but still an honest, striking and emotionally stirring chronicle.