Don't Pick on the Kid in the Wheelchair, He Might Kick Your Ass!

Only a few years ago I issues one of my infamous dismissive blanket statements, something along the line of "all documentries are boring." The Spellbound happened, and Hands on a Hard Body, and Super Size Me, and Farenheight 9/11, and I must admit now I find myself anxiously awaiting the next wave of documentries to be unleashed by festivals each year.

MURDERBALL won the audience award and the special jury prize in the documentry category at Sundance this year, and its easy to see why. Wheelchair Rugby is a balls to wall exciting sport - every participant, by virtue of being able to play, is an amazing and movie story themselves, and the 'plot,' which follows the US Team from the world championships in 2002 to the Paralympics in 2004 in Athens benefits from falling out in a surprisingly traditional 3 act structure. The movie even has a great villian, in ex US star now Team Canada coach Joe Soares, whose arrogance and drive to win (even at the expense of his family's happiness) is gut-wrenching.

On the forces of good side, MURDERBALL gives us Austin resident Chris Zuppan (who looks a lot like a bad ass version of my good friend Jeremy), a man who fell asleep in the back of a truck at age 17 and woke up flung 45 feet into the air into a canal where he hung onto a tree for 13 hours till someone found him... yeah, wow. He is the captain of Team USA both on the court and off, as we see him visit a rehab center and introduce new qudrapelegics to the game and inspire them to see their lives are not over. Another moving moment (yeah, I cried) is when Zuppan is reunited with his high-school friend, the man who drove the truck (drunk and not even knowing his best friend was in the back).

This movie kicks ass. It's funny (lines such as 'we don't want a hug, we want to win'), it's moving, it's exciting, and it's inspiring. You owe it to yourself to see this film, and to take others to see it as well. Rick's Rating: A -