It’s tempting to just declare Murderball the best sports documentary since When We Were Kings (which it almost certainly is) and be done with it. But Murderball is much more than a regular sports-doc. Indeed, the thought which most frequently occurs while watching is ‘wow, this film has everything.’
As a documentary following the American quadriplegic rugby team, there’s obviously plenty of inspirational punch-the-air moments on offer, but directors Shapiro and Rubin wisely ignore opportunities for sentiment. To be honest, they probably didn’t have much choice. This Team USA are a bunch of emo kids in Mad Max wheelchairs playing what can only be described as an extreme sport. It was originally called Murderball after all.
The drama, however, which unfolds around their trips to the World Championships and the last Paralympics in Athens is more exciting still. It transpires that Team USA was once captained by Joe Soares, a man whose shouty manner might invite unfavourable comparison with Mark E. Smith. When his age caused the team to drop him, he promptly defected to Canada taking most of the plays with him.
By the World Championships, Team USA, hitherto invincible, suddenly find themselves tested by their northern neighbours. Will they get their revenge by the Paralympics? Well, for a time you hope so. Mark Zupin, team spokesman and tattooed blonde Rollins is a very charismatic figure leading a good bunch of guys. But as the film branches out and we’re dragged into all manner of personal crises, Mr. Soares – variously referred to as Benedict Arnold or just ‘that motherfucker’ – starts to grow on you.
We watch him flatline on an operating table after a heart attack. Then we trace Zupin’s relationship with the former best friend whose drunk driving put him in a wheelchair. But despite the tragedy of watching young men crippled in their prime (and often as the result of youthful misadventure), Murderball forms a complete and compelling picture of masculinity with little time for moping about. Once a macho hard-ass…