Rez Ball
Rez Ball
After such glorious world premiere presentation of “Unstoppable”, “The Fire Inside” and “Rez Ball” directed by Sydney Freeland, we can safely conclude that predictably some var of “inspired by true events inspirational sports moviе” does return with a bang.
This was jointly developed with one of the creators of ‘Reservation Dogs’, Sterlin Harjo, and is adapted from Canyon Dreams, a non-fiction that tracks a basketball season with the Warriors, a high school team on a Navajo Reservation that clinches the New Mexico state title.
Having said that, there are definitively areas when one just knows how it will go and what will happen deep with the character introductions and their struggles. First is star player Nataanii Jackson (Kusem Goodwind), who is still struggling from the traumatic loss of his mother and sister to a drunk driver less than a year ago.
There is his best friend Jimy Horiday (Kauchani Bratt, an accomplished charmer), who has to work in a burger after school for his single mother Gloria (Julia Jones) and goes to school. Finally there is Coach Hobbs (Jessica Matten) who was a hot shot in the WNBA but is currently sulking at home following the backlash from her career shift.
There was also a high-energy season opener, basketball, Nataanii stepped up and last and won the season opener, but it must be said that since his loved ones have died he was sad and it can clearly be seen that Nataanii still feels such profound loss.
He makes himself small, cross-legged on the floor. In the game, stunningly, he jumps about and shoots making basket after basket with ease. It appears basketball is as natural for him as speaking. Outside the court, however, there is a constant sadness, there is always a weight about him that makes him different from other players.
However, when one of them fails to show up for the next showdown, a piece of news comes in which leaves the team dumbfounded. In the United States, suicidal death rates are some of the highest found on reservations, this young sportsman appears to have chosen that there is no further use in existing with grief.
At this point the attention changes to Jimmy who was hitherto treated like a minor character. Rez Ball is a jarring, unexpected swing that Freeland uses to put us into the head of the character. This pressure incents even more when Coach Hobbs, whose attention is set on how best to help this team manage their loss as well as the ongoing season, decides to make Jimmy the captain of the team.
Her bonding strategies are different and quite fun. One day, she decides to take them to her grandmother’s sheep shearing farm where they have to cooperate in capturing her runaway sheep that are scattered up the hills. At this point, Jimmy starts appreciating some aspects of Navajo culture, especially its language.
Thanks to numerous crippling defeats, the team begins to be at a disadvantage because some of the traditions they have always struggled against with make them give their plays from a linguistic perspective which keeps their opponents in the dark.
The best joke of the movie is the brief reference to the ‘Nicolas Cage’ movie, ‘Windtalkers’. While doing so, Harjo and Freeland balance the gravity of the situation with humor and wit, panties in hand, all this coming from a pair of color commentators with an endless repertoire of frybread jokes. Such a film cannot leave one feeling discomforting because it is also never boring.
One great thing Freeland does is choreographing pulsating shooting the basketball sequences. The camera moves with the ball in concert with the players and masterfully employs slow motion when the group shoots the ball and scores the points.
C K Hallett manages to complement these action sequences with more than a few character development scenes that give the major characters an opportunity to express themselves by recounting their hopes, pain, and all those things that make people.
Alas, because of the multitude of the movie poster cast, some characters do not develop as much as they are supposed to. It is amusing, however, that stardom brings broad shoulders like Amber Midthunder to the background as a supporting girlfriend character, when she steals every second of her brief on screen presence.
Some story arc strands such as the contrast between Norman and the rest of Capcom hierarchy do not or cannot develop or evolve any further. The director completely neglects Coach Hobbs time and feelings for a significant amount of the film which takes away from the pay off in the latter parts of the film.
Although there seems to be a deliberate effort to progress Jimmy’s relationship with Krista, the team’s instructor on the Navajo language, regard sees this relationship as more of an instrument for pushing the plot further than anything else. Nevertheless, parallel jiani journeys between Jimmy are well correlated with that of his mother.
Even as he embraces his culture and the burden of leadership, she fights her negative attitude, working and getting help for alcohol addiction in AA meetings.
“Rez Ball” in any case possesses its share of structural flaws, yet the story rises up and manages to be inspirational without even raising a finger to appeal to the audience. Its sweetness and sharpness have a home; it is an exotic yet an aware phenomenon. It’s also rather entertaining, which is probably the most important thing one could say about Rez Ball. I am pleased to say that the good old days of sports feel-good films are emerging after a long hibernation.
Watch free movies like on Fmovies
- Genre: Drama, Sport
- Country: United States
- Director: Sydney Freeland
- Cast: Kauchani Bratt, Jessica Matten, Devin Sampson-Craig
