THE STORY – The Chuska Warriors, a Native American high school basketball team from New Mexico, must band together after losing their star player to keep their quest for a state championship alive.
THE CAST – Jessica Matten, Kauchani Bratt, Amber Midthunder, Cody Lightning, Dallas Goldtooth, Ernest David Tsosie, Kusem Goodwind, Zoey Reyes & Julia Jones
THE TEAM – Sydney Freeland (Director/Writer) & Sterlin Harjo (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 111 Minutes
There was a time when movies like Sydney Freeland’s “Rez Ball” were a dime a dozen. Off the top of one’s head, you could probably think of about 20, and those are just the ones where basketball is the central sport in an otherwise generic underdog story. Movies like “Coach Carter,” “Glory Road,” “Hoosiers,” and “Hoop Dreams” may have become favorites. One’s interest in the genre could blossom from an appreciation for inspiring tales of teams staring down long odds and beating them to an obsession with films that examine real basketball history, many of which also happen to be underdog stories. Throw in a few recent standouts, like “The Way Back,” “The First Slam Dunk,” and “Hustle,” and you have a genre unto itself: catnip for this particular reviewer.
The only problem with these movies? Most of them aren’t any good. Blinded by youthful ignorance, it might’ve been easy to see that “Coach Carter” and “Glory Road” were thinly veiled portraits of race relations in a specific time and place in America that failed to explore anything beyond the surface, namely the color of its player’s skins. 2023’s “The Shooting Stars,” a dramatized retelling of LeBron James’ high school playing days that was made by the NBA legend’s production company, was schlocky and poorly executed; if you saw it, chances are you’re either a basketball obsessive or one of Peacock’s 46 subscribers. At least 2023’s “Rise,” a Disney+ original about the NBA’s Antetokounmpo brothers, dug a bit deeper than, “Hey, this guy turned out to be one of the world’s best hoopers! Here he is when he was young.” “Rise” examined his family’s emigration from Nigeria to Greece and their struggles to obtain citizenship in the latter nation. That it was also a cheesy, scattered drama mining most of its emotion out of orchestral swells from its score was less important than its valiant attempt to live up to its recycled promise: Audiences have never seen a story quite like this.
To its credit, “Rez Ball” is closer to a story we’ve never seen before than a story we’d rather never see again due to intense overexposure. Freeland’s third feature – executive produced by the aforementioned James, who has never seen an uplifting basketball movie he didn’t want to take some of the credit for – is certainly familiar in its tone, themes, and plot. But, it sheds light on a people and their culture that sports movies don’t tend to examine. Inspired by Michael Powell’s excellent nonfiction novel, “Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation,” “Rez Ball” follows the Chuska Warriors, a high school basketball team from a Navajo reservation in New Mexico that struggled in the season before the film’s events. Its star player, Nataanii Jackson (Kusem Goodwind), lost his mother and sister in a drunk driving accident that same year and departs the team to grieve. That left matters in the hands of Jimmy Holiday (Kauchani Bratt, whose charm is offensively irresistible), a good player in his own right, but he’s no Nataanii. The team has slipped below expectations, falling well short of a chance at the state title, which puts a considerable amount of pressure on head coach Heather Hobbs (Jessica Matten) to succeed in the new season.
The good news? Nataanii is back, still grieving but suiting up and playing through the pain. In the Warriors’ first game, he and Jimmy light up the opposition and head to the locker room with a 1-0 record. But, before Nataanii can hit the showers, a reporter pulls him aside and asks how hard it was for him to play without his mom and sister in the crowd. His face falls, and despite Jimmy coming to his rescue, Nataanii seems broken, as though their names being mentioned killed them all over again. Later, when he and Jimmy are hanging out at their “spot,” a perch overlooking the reservation, Nataanii asks if, like him, Jimmy ever thinks about “leaving.” Jimmy thinks he’s talking about the “rez,” as they call it, and laughs it off, encouraging his pal that in due time, they’ll both be off to college somewhere far from there.
The next day, Nataanii doesn’t show up for school, and as tip-off against the top-ranked team in the state approaches, no one can seem to get a hold of him. As the game, a blowout not remotely in favor of the Warriors, winds down, we see several police officers entering the gym. In one fell swoop, murmurs come over the gym and flow into the boy’s locker room after the final buzzer sounds. A teary coach, Hobbs, tells them that Nataanii took his own life the night before. Their star teammate and, more importantly, their brother is gone.
That you can see it coming doesn’t make it any less harrowing to hear, a credit to Freeland and Sterlin Harjo’s deeply moving writing. The duo notes the statistical reality that suicide (and alcoholism, another topic the film examines) is incredibly common on reservations with a tenderness that only someone with roots in the land could ever properly conjure. Freeland, a seasoned television director who directed two episodes of the second season of “Reservation Dogs” and was raised on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico herself, fits the bill and is more than up to the task. That she wrote herself into a corner where she’s stuck juggling so much thematic substance doesn’t necessarily make things any easier.
Indeed, “Rez Ball” manages to pack in a lot over 111 minutes, an element that toggles between serving as a feature and as a bug, occasionally both at once. Many of its bugs come in the form of personal issues for its characters: Coach Hobbs is having romantic problems, her long-distance relationship crumbling under the pressure of Hobbs’ failures at Chuska, and her indecision about taking a college job closer to home. Jimmy’s mother, Gloria (Julia Jones), was once a basketball star herself but fell on hard times and became a full-blown alcoholic, something that still prevents her from getting a job. Of course, we’re working with a film that hinges entirely on being uplifting, so these predicaments inevitably resolve themselves in one way or another. But their presences, albeit sparse, still clutter the proceedings a touch. Most of them are sidelined for the majority of the film, only to startlingly reappear, like a kid cut from the practice squad suddenly wandering onto the court and announcing himself as a starter.
When Freeland focuses on hoops, the film soars to heights beyond its over-sentimental tone and telegraphed plot points. Not only does the film know ball – a 3-2 zone is properly depicted, as are the little things, such as back cuts, illegal screens, and free throw jitters – but it also knows how to illustrate authentic relationships between teammates. Early on, the Chuska girls team slaughters the boys in a scrimmage because they know how to play together. That might hit a little close to home for former benchwarmers, which is all the more reason to praise it. Later, in the film’s standout scene, the Warriors are brought to Hobbs’ grandmother’s ranch and tasked with herding her sheep back to camp. Without spoiling its most entertaining moments, let’s just say it was a pleasure to watch a group of teenagers doing textbook defensive slides while corralling sheep back to their pen.
The same goes for “Rez Ball’s” portrayal of, well, “Rez Ball,” a real tactic in which the team with the ball looks to create a good shot for themselves in seven seconds or fewer. Since Jimmy is Chuska’s only reliable shot creator, their new objective is deployed to run other teams into the ground. It works to perfection. When opposing teams become familiar with their plays, they call them out in Navajo, yet another nice touch from Freeland and Harjo’s script. The Warriors’ new strategy is so effective that it lands them a spot on SportsCenter as the stars of Scott Van Pelt’s nightly feature, “One Big Thing.” The only thing that tops such an honor? A winning streak that carries the Warriors into the playoffs and a rematch with the mighty (and very white) Sante Fe Catholic squad and the state’s top player, Mason Troy (Sam Griesel, a former Nebraska Cornhuskers recruit).
With this context, you can surely imagine “Rez Ball” going one of two ways. We won’t say what those ways are, nor will we spoil how far the team goes, but one of your conceptualized outcomes is correct. After all, this is an inspirational story told through the lens of basketball, and those movies typically only know how to end in a Mad Libs fashion, where a player has the final shot and makes or misses it as the buzzer sounds, ending the season on a high or low note. Yet, despite its propensity for sticking to those conventions, “Rez Ball” overflows with so much heart that you’re almost able to look the other way. Bratt is a true breakout as Jimmy, a handsome kid oozing magnetism just by breathing, feels like a surefire candidate to land a gig as the romantic lead in Netflix’s next high school rom-com. Freeland and her cinematographer, Kira Kelly (who shot Ava DuVernay’s “13th“), have a visual panache that transitions between emotionally resonant monologues and action scenes on the court with the ease of a fast break alley-oop.
Whether or not we ever see “Rez Ball 2: The Road to Nationals” isn’t much of a concern. That this exists in all of its uplifting glory is enough to whet appetites for future projects of the same ilk. It could revitalize cinema’s collective desire to bring back the true-blue sports drama with a vengeance. Just don’t call it a comeback. Films like “Rez Ball” prove that it never truly went anywhere at all.
