Unguarded (2011)
Unguarded (DOC) (USA) Directed by Jonathan Hock
Currently being shown on ESPN.
Chris Herren is a former NBA basketball player whose struggle with drugs and alcohol is documented in this look at one man’s battle to overcome his own personal demons.
Herren grew up in basketball crazy Fall River, Massachusetts, a working class community some 45 miles southeast of Boston. A shorter distance to Providence RI, Fall River has a reputation a depressed ex mill town a long way removed from ‘better days’, a place where most are born, grow up, and die without leaving.
Raised in a basketball family, Herren, now 36, is one of the greatest high school players to come out of the state. He was an All American and the Gatorade Player of the Year during his senior season, and during his junior year he and his team’s state championship drive was chronicled in Providence Journal writer Bill Reynold’s 1994 book Fall River Dreams. Reynolds has co-written a new book with Herren, entitled Basketball Junkie (2011), and the writer appears briefly in the film.
Following high school, Herren accepted a scholarship to Boston College, transferred to Fresno State, played in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics, and then overseas in five different countries, but throughout his journey drugs and alcohol ruled his life, and among other revelations is the fact that Herren admits to playing in college while under the influence of cocaine, and playing professional basketball while being a full-blown heroin user.
Longtime documentary director Jonathan Hock slickly frames the story by showing Herren in his current role as motivational speaker as he tells his story to different groups, interspersing interviews with relatives (the ones with brother Mike are particularly poignant), friends, and basketball insiders (coaches Jerry Tarkanian and Rick Pitino); old photos and footage; and journeying to some key spots in Herren’s past as he relates anecdotes about his playing career and substance abuse.
According to Herren he is now (at the time of the filming) three years sober, and spends his time working with recovering addicts, public speaking, and coaching kids. Married, with three children, and clearly contrite about his problematic history, Herren admits to neglecting his family and wasting lots of money on drugs, though with the exception of a few stories, and some detailing of several arrests, very few specifics emerge about his behavior. Thus, though wife Heather emerges as a kind of stalwart hero, one is left to guess about the merely alluded to extent of what she endured, and immediate questions about her husband’s fidelity, how she has survived as he admittedly sold off their possessions, etc. abound.
As is the film is still a worthwhile cautionary tale, and one must credit the appealing Herren with being willing to expose himself in this way, but this is still a manicured profile as opposed to a serious investigative documentary, and whether the supposition is true or not it feels very much as if Herren is dictating the terms here. While it would be silly not to recognize the courage it takes to admit to nearly ruining ones life in this manner, and to applaud him for turning things around, it seems as if concerns for the people closest to him may have led Herren to be less than forthcoming regarding the lives of his family. Admirable perhaps, but not necessarily conducive to telling the whole story.
One only has to look at some of the missing information to see that this is a less than fully rounded piece. In addition to the previous questions posed, there is little to no mention of brother Mike’s own, publicized trouble with the law, including a 2010 arrest and incarceration for beating his twenty five year old girlfriend; the nature of the brothers (very primary) past and/or present relationship with father Al, or the senior Herren’s well-known career in Massachusetts politics; the impact of the two books involving Herren’s life; his parent’s divorce; the effect of his mother’s death; or writer Reynolds marrying his mother. One is therefore left with a host of serious lingering questions about his ongoing mental health and treatment (scant information is given); his family background and possible problems in his childhood home; his wife and children’s road to healing (have they gotten obviously needed professional help themselves?); he and his family’s current financial situation; and the reasons why a handsome, superstar athlete with all the gifts in the world becomes a serious heroin addict.
Simply stating he grew up in Fall River and that there was a lot of pressure to live up to community/family expectations is frankly not nearly enough to begin to answer those questions, and unfortunately the film doesn’t even try. An interesting story, but given its handling perhaps better suited for a segment on HBO’s Real Sports.