Broke

Following the glory days of professional sports, a staggering number of athletes find themselves insolvent, with figures as high as 60% of NBA players filing for bankruptcy after five years of retirement and 78% for NFLers following just three years. Since the salary booms of the last twenty years, athletes find themselves unable and in many cases unwilling to deal with their financial responsibilities and, after what is more often than not a short lived career, find themselves the targets of scams, leeches, and their own bad decisions. Billy Corben's "Broke", the first entry in the lastest run of ESPN's 30 for 30 series, features candid interviews with several athletes who have found financial strife since their playing days (including Bernie Kosar (above), Andre Rison, Jamal Mashburn), and very little else in terms of documentary film. "Broke" is redundant, devoid of style, and contains not even the slightest modicum of insight. Unless you haven't figured out that "mo' money, mo' problems" and "makin' it rain is like throwin' cash away", or you would care to know what an athlete's model portfolio should look like, or if the pathetic equivocalness of grown ignorant men who have squandered everything is something that interests you, then you can save yourself the trouble and avoid "Broke."