Rez Ball

This reviewer loves "underdog" stories because they resonate with each one of us who has tried to do something big, and failed the first time. As a new entry in this genre, REZ BALL 2024 is rock solid. The script is good, the young players give it their all, and the direction is a lot like the game of B-ball itself -- constantly moving forward, constantly looking to capture your attention. Also nice to see Jessica Matten again in a starring role -- she was instrumental in making the DARK WINDS series a streaming hit. What this film has, however, to make it stand out, is an "existential" foe seldom encountered in a teen sports film. Most of us grow up in a culture where anything is possible. Rez kids do not know that culture. They are fighting not only the opposing teams, but also the dread that their life goals are going to be as hard-won as their game goals. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

Sydney Freeland's 2024 film "Rez Ball" is a potent sports drama based on true events that rocked a small Native American town. The movie deftly addresses difficult subjects like suicide, pain, and loss while emphasizing the resiliency, optimism, and solidarity that arise after tragedy. The Chuska Warriors, a high school basketball team on the Navajo Reservation, must unite under the new coach Jimmy Holiday (Kauchani Bratt) after their top player Nataanii committed suicide. What might have been a tale of hopelessness turns into one of resilience and healing as basketball becomes the motivating factor for their group's recovery.

Through a deft blending of themes of coming-of-age, bereavement, and community, Freeland's directing crafts an emotionally charged and inspiring story. The movie manages to find a fine balance between exploring the painful nature of loss and being a pure sports story, using basketball as a metaphor for the community's tenacity. With the help of a formidable ensemble cast that includes Jessica Matten and Julia Jones, "Rez Ball" depicts Native American resiliency in addition to highlighting the emotional hardships of its characters. The breathtaking New Mexico vistas are used to provide depth to the tale in this masterfully shot movie. "Rez Ball" delves profoundly into the themes of optimism, loss, and cultural pride.

Netflix brings us a sports drama from director and screenwriter Sydney Freeland that takes us to the Navajo reservation with an emotional basketball sports drama.

The long list of sports dramas in the cinema is varied in terms of memories and quality, and here Netflix gives us a proposal where we can find many of the iconic clichés in action, but which guarantee a fairly emotional and functional pastime like those moments of the most outstanding titles of this subgenre.

The film, while not afraid to follow the tried and true beats of the genre, is the specificity of the film that is handled with total care by its director who knows how to give you just the right amount of sports drama, life drama, Navajo drama and social drama that with all of that makes the perfect mix so that the path to the heroic act works as the main course of the film in a satisfactory way.

With a fairly efficient cast, where Kauchani Bratt stands out in the main role and a satisfactory Jessica Matten in her leading role, they are the most notable point of a cast that in its entirety is quite fulfilling and rewarding.

A proposal that knows how to mix comedy, courage, drama and redemption in a genuinely exciting way that makes us have an entertaining film without having to demand itself, but rather with the solvency of having a sports drama full of everything that one seeks to find within these proposals, but it does so with the desired measure so that nothing is too much and neither is it limited so that it is unsatisfactory, a mix with the precise doses to give a good weekend show.

This is a story about a Navajo basketball team, so I wonder why the writers who write the description blurbs on streaming sites and IMBD can't be bothered to state that the team is Navajo, instead of "Native American". OK, that was my one quibble with the way the film is marketed.

The film itself is well produced and has a good cast. The story is, for the most part, believable. It does seem to be aimed at ticking as many boxes as possible for woke points. What's good is the number of relatively new faces in the cast as well as some familiar actors such as Ryan Begay, Kiowa Gordon, Morningstar Angeline and Amber Midthunder. None of the cast did bad jobs with their roles, IMO, all good work.

How many of these rag tag kids go from outcasts to heroes sports movies do we need? Watch Bad News Bears, Hoosiers, Mighty Ducks then repeat if you want to watch the same movie again. For that matter, if you substitute an individual for the kids, you can just watch Rocky (the first 3 anyway) or Million Dollar Baby and get all the underdog overcomes adversity to win sports contest thrills you will ever need.

Rez Ball is just the same plot with poor direction, no development of a connection between the viewer and the character, obtrusive musical montages instead of actual acting and checking off some Dine stereotypes. Oh, and if they said the phrase "Rez Ball" one more time, I planned on sticking an icepick into my eardrums.

I'm all for using Native American actors in films wherever you want to cast them. Just make sure you create a good movie first.