You know a filmmaker has done his job when his movie appeals even to people who couldn't care less about the subject. That's "Through the Fire," a generically titled but sincerely compelling documentary about basketball phenom Sebastian Telfair, a Coney Island kid who went straight from high school to the NBA in 2004.

I don't follow basketball at all. I live two miles from the Portland arena where Telfair now plays and had still never heard of him. (Apparently the Trail Blazers suck. Or so say my sources.) I spent most of the movie not knowing whether he would be drafted at the end, something that's common knowledge among most of the film's viewers. So I'm not the target audience, but I found Jonathan Hock's documentary engaging and robust anyway, even if I sort of zoned out sometimes during the clips of basketball games (which, I hasten to add, are very well-shot and edited).

The film starts in 2003, with Sebastian going into his senior year at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. Clean-cut, boyishly good-looking and ever-smiling, he's already a local superstar. By October he has signed a letter of intent with the University of Louisville. But Louisville coach Rick Pitino isn't stupid. He sees the NBA scouts circling like sharks around Sebastian, eager to have him skip college and go right to the pros.

Over the course of the season, Sebastian becomes New York City's all-time top scorer; takes his team to Louisville for an exhibition game against the university team; becomes the first player in history to win three PSAL (Public School Athletic League) titles; and gets a Sports Illustrated cover story speculating on whether he'll go pro.

Sebastian's mother is seen in the periphery. Her heart was broken in 1999, when her older son Jamel Thomas was snubbed in the NBA draft. She doesn't want to get her hopes up again, and rarely attends Sebastian's games. For his part, Sebastian has the same goal cited by so many urban kids with big dreams: to buy his momma a house and get her out of the projects. After two crucial victories in the film, the first thing Sebastian wants to do is hug his mom.

Sebastian has another older brother, Daniel, who's an assistant coach on Sebastian's high school team and keenly aware of how important the boy's future is for the financially strapped family. When Jamel didn't make the NBA, he opted to support the family by playing professionally overseas. And a little brother, Ethan, all of 8 years old, is already being trained by Daniel to give it a try if Sebastian fails, too.

The film doesn't spend a lot of time on the family dynamics, but it devotes just enough to show the love and loyalty that keep them together. After deciding to go pro, Sebastian goes to Greece to train with Jamel and clear his head, while the media back in the U.S. -- the same people who kept baiting Sebastian in the hopes he would join the draft -- now say it was a bad move, that he'll never make it. (You can see why I was in suspense over the outcome.)

Hock, who has years of experience as a sports filmmaker, captures the excitement of Sebastian's games more than adequately. But he also conveys real emotion with the off-court stories. Sebastian's fame and success do start to go to his head, and Hock wisely avoids having friends and family comment on it -- all the better to let the viewer notice it, you know? The finale, when the NBA draft picks are announced on ESPN, is a supremely joyful event. Seeing Sebastian and his loved ones crying with happiness is a marvelously satisfying way to end the film.

Telfair hasn't exactly been a breakout star with the Blazers, and a recent gun charge isn't helping his image (which was very important to him when he was in high school). So the film is a time capsule of sorts, showing the promise and hopefulness of a young man whose whole career still lay ahead of him. It's an excellent behind-the-scenes documentary as well as an above-average sports film.

THE DVD

There are optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. There are no alternate language tracks.

VIDEO: It's widescreen (1.78:1), but not anamorphic. It was shot mostly on hand-held cameras on digital video without artificial lighting, so you get what you get. It looks pretty sharp, though.

AUDIO: Dolby Digital Stereo, which sounds quite good. They managed to have a microphone on Sebastian even when he was on the court in the middle of a game, so they capture some pretty intimate moments, all of which sound crystal clear.

EXTRAS: A wealth of deleted scenes (14:21 total) offer a little more insight into Sebastian's character -- especially his cockiness, which emerges slightly in the film but is on display a lot more in these scenes, which cover the 2004 New York State finals, the 2004 McDonald's High School All American game, and Sebastian's trip to Greece.

The extended interviews -- with Louisville coach Rick Pitino, Sebastian's brother Jamel Thomas, his high school coach Tiny Morton, and Sebastian himself -- are insightful, but poorly assembled. Pitino (4:21) and Thomas' (6:35) "interviews" are underscored with distracting cheesy music and aren't interviews at all: They're just a series of responses to unheard questions, broken up into little segments.

Morton's (3:15) is more of an interview, except instead of hearing the questions, we see them written on the screen. The awful music continues. Morton talks about his coaching style vs. Pitino's style, and about Lincoln High School's game against Edgewater.

Sebastian has three interviews, two of which are in the same style as Morton's (i.e., questions appear on the screen, and then we cut to his edited responses). The first one (7:13) was conducted before the Edgewater game and covers familiar territory: what Coney Island means to him, how his brother Jamel influenced him, etc. The segment "Prospects on the NBA Draft" (7:32) focuses on his anticipation of the upcoming draft and reflects a little on the McDonald's All American game.

Finally, his interview with ESPN (3:00) is an actual interview, conducted via satellite with two anchors. It aired just before the McDonald's game and, much to Sebastian's irritation, focused on his Louisville-vs.-NBA prospects, and not about the upcoming game.

You want some game highlights? You're in luck, dawg. The senior year segment (4:25) offers clips from Sebastian's final year in high school.

The 2004 McDonald's All American Game (10:10) is an ESPN package that condenses key moments from the game. Sebastian wasn't a stand-out in the game, and the package doesn't focus on him particularly.

Lincoln vs. Edgewater (13:09) was televised on ESPN2, and the footage is courtesy of the network. Like the previous one, it's a condensed view of the game, complete with color commentary.

The New York City playground clips (3:25) offer a less produced, more raw look at Sebastian and his fellow non-professionals hoopin' it up on the streets and in the gyms.

An excerpt from "The Life" with Stephon Marbury (Sebastian's cousin) (5:45) is superfluous. Stephon is not the subject of "Through the Fire," and is mentioned in it only briefly. So why spotlight him on the DVD? This belongs on the Stephon Marbury DVD, not the Sebastian Telfair one. The good news is, if you hadn't heard quite enough of Sebastian talking about how much he loves Coney Island, now you can hear Marbury say the same thing.

The Q&A with Sebstian Telfair (6:27) is footage filmed after the movie's premiere at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, in which he and director Jonathan Hock field questions from the audience.

Finally, Hock and cinematographer Alastair Christopher provide a great commentary in which they discuss the surprising turns the film took. When they started, of course, they didn't know they were making a movie about a high schooler who went pro; they were making a movie about Lincoln High School basketball, which was on its way to being the first team ever to be three-time city-wide champs. Only over time did Sebastian's career become the focus.

They also tell some interesting stories about re-editing the film from its initial cuts, including moving Jamel's story to the beginning and structuring the film to make the point that Sebastian is working toward the draft out of love for his mother. They both reflect on the tear-jerker finale, when Sebastian is drafted and his friends and family erupt into frenzied joy. "I've been in the clubhouse after the Yankees won the World Series, I've in Super Bowl locker rooms," Hock says. "I've never been anywhere where I felt this kind of emotion." Christopher says simply, "Every time I watch it, it breaks me up." Ditto.

IN SUMMARY

For basketball and/or Sebastian Telfair enthusiasts, the film and its DVD presentation are a must-have. But take it from someone outside the target market: It's an expertly made documentary and a stirring story regardless of your interest in sports, and the DVD more than does it justice.