Instant Favorite.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Dreadfully Boring

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

MICHAEL WINTERS -- How can anybody take your review seriously with that kind of atrocious spelling! It is, however, in keeping with your general lack of knowledge of this period. Having had the pleasure of spending time interviewing Dino Radja during his time with the Celtics, and learning more about the political climate, as well as Vlade's outlook, I'm happy to conclude that you are wrong on all fronts. By all accounts, Divac was remorseful both at the time, and in the aftermath, and I'm not buying into your bluster about laying hard fouls on Drazen. The rest of the Croatian players - Kukoc in particular - have nothing to gain by attaching their name to the documentary if they felt it was disingenuous. Kudos to ESPN for looking outside of the usual headlines in this - and other - 30 for 30's.

The biggest problem of this film is that is completely one-sided. While Vlade Divac is very much alive, Drazen Petrvic is very much dead, so we hear only one side of the coin. Divac, who appears as a friendly, jovial guy was indeed someone who mocked Petrovic's country and did throw the Croatian flag to the ground, and in a Lakers/Nets game did foul Petrovic in anger. So, now, 20 years later it's easy going down memory lane without admitting any guilt. Is he pretending to wonder what happened or is this a genuine blindness to one's own appalling behavior. Furthermore, the film doesn't present the political situation in a hysterically accurate way. The violence and breakup of Yugoslavia where masterminded by Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic in his quest for greater Serbia. Divac never acknowledges that...he simply regrets the war. If he was truly a great man, he would have apologized for his behavior and admitted shame for the behavior of his country.

I learned a lot in this movie, not only about the lives of Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac, but also of the political situation in the nation formerly known as Yugoslavia. I have always known who Drazen Petrovic was, but never to this extent. He has a work ethic that is comparable to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and he is arguably the best European player of all time in terms of talent. I especially love how the production crew went to Vlade Divac's hometown and involved other players from the Yugoslavia team, including Toni Kukoc. Their path and successes in the NBA is the icing on the cake. A must watch for any NBA fan or a fan of sports in general.

Within sports there will always be stories – the season where the team came back from nowhere to win the title, the season where the team didn't lose a single game and so on, and to a certain degree these stories are captured forever in the stats. However within any season or match there will always be specifics and it is these that are the things people tell each other about in pubs and often this oral history is the main way these stories remain. This is why i have enjoyed many of these ESPN film because they do a good job of looking at the smaller stories behind the sports. With Once Brothers the film offered me the appeal of knowing the people involved but yet not knowing the story.It was the mid-90's when I started playing and watching basketball and I such I of course came to know the names of the European players such as Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc and others because they were excellent players, however by the time they entered my sphere of knowledge, the story of this film had happened already. And so it was I watched the film without knowing what happened to Drazen Petrovic or, at one point, quite what story I was being told. For the first half of the film we are filled in on the history of the young Yugoslavian team and how some of the stars from there came to the NBA. The story starts to focus on Divac (who has been our presenter and narrator) and his friend Petrovic, showing the early NBA careers of both – with Petrovic in particular capable of more than Portland was offering him.When the war breaks out the film then follows the fracturing between Divac and the rest of the team – in particular the death of the friendship with Petrovic and the importance of one interaction with a flag after a European match. This thread is followed until the tragic end to the story. The telling is really good throughout and the focus on Divac is a strength because he has a great warmth and is natural in front of camera – he may or may not be incredibly wealthy but he certainly doesn't come over like a spoilt sports star. His narration and his honesty makes the film compelling and, in addition to the details, it is quite moving. The presentation does add some stuff that the facts don't need – for example the sad music played over war footage felt like it was overegging it for no reason. Mostly though it is bang on the money; it shows some great footage from the Nets with Petrovic showing his quality against Michael Jordan and it makes the civil war in Yugoslavia easy to understand. The access to the players and the families is good and it really puts a human face on the story and it is sad that the two men never had a chance to come together having be torn apart by arbitrary political lines on a map.Well presented, engaging, moving and informative; this is a great film that tells a sports story I never knew – it benefits greatly from the warm honesty of Divac as presenter and subject.