An
aggressive, exciting sport, quad
rugby is the blue riband event
of the Paralympic world. Its
great exponents include Mark
Zupan, a bearded, tattooed jock
whose colourful exterior masks a
remarkable athlete. A key member
of Team USA, Zupan's
arch-nemesis is Joe Soares, a
former team-mate who now coaches
the Canadian national team.
With the
Athens Paralympiad just months
away, Zupan and Soares - neither
short on self-confidence or the
will to win - inspire their
teams to reach for the greatest
prize their sport has to offer.
But the road to Greece is
littered with punctured tyres,
family dramas and broken dreams.
Co-directed by newcomer Dana
Adam Shapiro and Henry Alex
Rubin, creator of the
excellent if little seen
Who Is Henry Jaglom?,
Murderball feints one
way then goes another. With
disabled sport lending
itself to the most
patronising of platitudes,
you could be forgiven for
thinking the film might
tread the much-travelled
triumph over adversity
route. But while this is a
story of courage and
unlikely success, Shapiro
and Rubin's film prefers to
depict quad rugby's stars as
athletes first and
paraplegics second. So we
get to see Zupan and his
team-mates partying hard,
picking up women, and doing
all the things we condemn
able-bodied sportsmen for
doing on a daily basis.
In a stroke that could've
easily backfired upon the
filmmakers, Rubin and
Shapiro introduce Zupan - an
incredibly charismatic young
man - to Christopher Igoe,
the former school friend who
caused the accident that
left Zupan in his current
predicament. It's precisely
the sort of stunt that's
ruined any number of
documentaries. But such is
the filmmakers admiration
for both the players and
their sport - Murderball
comes on like a thrilling
hybrid of rugby,
Rollerball and Death
Race 2000 - that even
this potentially icky
encounter succeeds in both
lifting the spirits and
raising the bar for
documentary filmmaking.
Verdict
Murderball is arguably the
greatest sports movie since
Hoop Dreams and When We
Were Kings.
http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=151579&page=2
