MURDERBALL
Directed by: Henry-Alex Rubin & Dana Adam Shapiro.
Produced by: Jeffrey Mandel & Dana Adam Shapiro.
Based on an article by: Dana Adam Shapiro.
Director of Photography: Henry-Alex Rubin.
Edited by: Geoffrey Richman.
Music by: Jamie Saft.
Released by: THINKFilm.
Country of Origin: USA. 86 min. Rated: R.

One of the best sports films to come along in years, this empathetic and exciting documentary chronicles the rivalry between the American and Canadian teams in quad rugby, where paralyzed men slam into each other in Mad Max-like wheelchairs. Started in Canada, the sport was formerly dubbed murderball. The film's directors, Henry-Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro, play up the competition with sped-up footage, fast zooms, and slow-mo's, first in the 2002 world championship (which the US had dominated for 10 consecutive years) and then in the 2004 Paralympics in Athens.

The film opens with the tattooed Mark Zupan, the star of the US team, rising out of bed and dressing himself. Determined and tough, the last thing these jocks, or the filmmakers, want is sympathy. Even Zupan's father says, "I know very few people that would f*** with Mark." A former star player, Joe Soares, was cut from the American team in his mid-thirties - he had less speed. He switched sides, and now at 43 is coaching the Canadian team against his former teammates. Murderball also follows a young man, Andy Cavill, through physical rehabilitation after he recently became disabled in a motocross accident. In following Cavill, the film succeeds in making the audience see the world through his eyes.

The film doesn't cut any corners; the men are more than forthcoming about their sex lives. Playing up the sympathy card, one player admits, "The more pitiful I am, the more the women like me." Adding depth, Murderball goes off on intriguing tangents - as with Joe's adolescent son Robert, who is overshadowed by his boisterous father. Robert is more likely to succeed in orchestra than in sports. And a tense sequence recounts the auto accident which injured Mark when he was a teenager. The driver was his best friend, who had been drinking and had no idea Mark was asleep in the bed of his truck. Their strained relationship is one of the film's threads.

This fast-paced film only loses stamina when it imposes an animated sequence as one athlete describes his dream of flying and with a slightly manipulative moment that comes at the inevitable meeting of Cavill with Zupan, who is seeking recruits to the sport. Perhaps the most moving scene is at the end, when Zupan and others teach quad rugby to fresh-faced men and women who have been injured in the Iraq War, one of whom looks no older than 13. In one shot, the directors may have inadvertently made the year's most political film. Kent Turner
July 8, 2005