Review: Rez Ball — Movies for the Rest of Us with Bill Newcott

Rez Ball

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 1 hour 51 minutes

Stars: Kauchani Bratt, Jessica Matten, Julia Jones

Writers: Sydney Freeland, Sterlin Harjo (Based on a book and New York Times series by Michael Powell)

Director: Sydney Freeland

In theaters and streaming on Netflix; Reviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival

 

Every sports movie worth its sneakers has a big, climactic “stand up and cheer” moment, and at the very least, Rez Ball, the story of a plucky Native American high school basketball team, has that.

At the very most, Rez Ball offers a sobering but inspiring glimpse into life on America’s Indian Reservations; a reminder that the people who were here first strive daily to overcome social and emotional trauma akin to that of an abused spouse: souls bruised, bodies languishing.

Based on a New York Times series, Rez Ball traces a tragic season turned triumphant for the Chuska Warriors, a high school basketball team that is the passionate pride and joy of the town. If you think those Indianians in Hoosiers were hot for their team, dial that to the boiling point and you’re getting close to how fired up members of the Navajo Nation, where Rez Ball is set, are about their high school hoopsters. The local radio station broadcasts play-by-play accounts, and the star players are the objects of autograph hunters.

So rabid is the local fan base, in fact, that when the Warriors get off to a slow start in what was expected to be a championship season, voices on the radio and Internet start calling for the head of coach Heather Hobbs (Jessica Matten of AMC’s Dark Winds). It’s not all her fault, of course — an awful event following the season’s first game has thrown the team into an emotional and competitive tailspin. Shell shocked and divided by the tragedy, the boys are as likely to throw a punch as the ball at each other.

Most troubled among the players is Jimmy (Kauchani Bratt), a basketball prodigy who is also the team member most directly affected by the season-shattering tragedy. His disjointed home life doesn’t help: He has to work at a fast-food joint to help support his emotionally distant mother (Julia Jones) who won’t even attend his games, and who keeps the reason a secret from her son.

And always, there is the infuriating condescension of the outside world: As the Warriors scramble to save their season and compete for the New Mexico State Championship, they face the dripping disdain of big-city teams from well-funded schools.

Still, Heather — a former WNBA player who has returned to coach at her old high school — isn’t giving up. Realizing that the team’s dilemma is largely the result of the scourges facing the Indigenous community — alcoholism, joblessness, depression and suicide — she endeavors to bring the boys around by helping them embrace their heritage.

She enlists a retired coach (Navajo comedian Ernie Tsosie) to immerse the boys in traditional tribal customs, reminding them of matters that transcend mere sports — and also cleverly infusing some Navajo language-based strategies to gain an advantage on the court over their English-speaking foes.

To instill a sense of teamwork, Heather takes the Warriors to the homestead of her grandmother where, in the film’s most delightful sequence, the boys must cooperate to herd an unruly collection of sheep into their pen.

Does the coach’s master plan work? Hey, this is a sports movie: Even if the team doesn’t win it all, we understand by the final fadeout our guys will be fashioned into better people in ways only sports can facilitate.

Still, while adhering to the formula of a sports drama, Rez Ball unfolds with an uncommon sense of place and Indigenous culture. While immersing us in the human drama of Rez Ball, Navajo director Sydney Freeland (TV’s Reservation Dogs) is stalwart in constantly reminding us where we are — from the dramatic presence of Shiprock, the 1,500-foot-high promontory visible from virtually every corner of the Navajo Nation in northern New Mexico, to the dusty roads and windswept desert that spreads in all directions.

If Rez Ball starts out at the bottom of a dark, deep canyon, director Freeland ushers us on a steady, sometimes frustrating, climb to the canyon’s rim, where that first step into the sunlight makes the trials of the ascent not only worthwhile, but an essential element of the journey.