F1: High-octane entertainment

F1 (2025) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.13.25

This is, without question, the ne plus ultra of professional car racing movies.

 

Until now, depending upon one’s age, fans likely would point to 1966’s Grand Prix, 1971’s Le Mans, 2013’s Rush or 2019’s Ford V Ferrari.

 

Cocky young race car driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris, left) can't imagine why he
has been paired with — in his eyes — a washed-up senior citizen like Sonny Hayes
(Brad Pitt), and does nothing to conceal his contempt. The kid has much to learn...

(Sorry Tom, but 1990’s Days of Thunder sinks beneath its banal plot, stick-figure characters and jaw-droppingly dreadful dialogue.)

This one blows ’em all off the track.

 

Director Joseph Kosinski, co-scripter Ehren Kruger, cinematographer Claudio Miranda and editors Stephen Mirrione and Patrick J. Smith have done the seemingly impossible, by dropping their film right into the middle of actual Formula 1 racing competitions. The result is a level of unparallelled authenticity, which grants us edge-of-the-seat viewers an astonishing sense of being there: not merely on the track, in the design facilities and amid the pit crews, but also inside the cars during the heat of racing.

 

It's actually better than live-TV coverage of actual Formula 1 events, because Miranda employed state-of-the-art, pan-and-tilt portable cameras capable of providing multiple angles of drivers in the bay — essentially getting bolted into their vehicles, like the steering wheel and other components — and during the height of racing action on straightaways and G-force curves.

 

But all of this would be mere window-dressing, absent a solid story and relatable characters, played here by an impressively charismatic cast led by the always captivating Brad Pitt. Adept at strong dramatic scenes and graced with a quiet, laid-back calm that was made for a movie camera, Pitt also is blessed with one of cinema’s most radiant smiles. 

 

When it emerges — particularly during unexpected moments, as if Pitt were happily surprised by the appearance of an old friend — the emotional impact is to die for. He truly is the Baby Boomers’ Paul Newman.

 

Kosinski and Kruger essentially have revisited the formula that worked so well for them in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick: another take on the redemption saga of Old Dog Teaches Young Pup New Tricks, in a highly charged dramatic environment.

 

And, just as Kosinski put us into a fighter jet’s cockpit like never before, he has done the same here with Formula 1 racing.

Rez Ball: Shoots and scores!

Rez Ball (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, teen drug/alcohol use, occasional profanity and crude references

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.13.24

This continues to be a terrific year for inspirational sports sagas, and director Sydney Freeland’s heartfelt drama is another winner.

 

Coaches Heather and Benny (Jessica Matten and Ernest Tsosie III, far right) watch the
game action, along with team members, from left, Ruckus (Damian Henry Castellane),
Warlance (Jojo Jackson) and Levi (Jaren K. Robledo).

Although suggested by Michael Powell’s 2019 nonfiction book, Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation, Freeland and co-writer Sterlin Harjo developed their own characters and storyline. Freeland comes by the topic honestly; her high school basketball days at Navajo Prep spawned a lifelong love of the game.

No surprise, then: The tone, characters and Navajo culture are rigorously authentic (and just as captivating as the basketball action).

 

The present-day setting is the fictitious reservation community of Chuska, named for the mountain range that runs along the Arizona/New Mexico border. The story begins as longtime best friends Nataanii (Kusem Goodwind) and Jimmy (Kauchani Bratt) razz each other during some lively one-on-one. Their bond is palpable, but Nataanii’s bearing is withdrawn, somehow fragile.

 

He still grieves for his mother and sister, recently killed by a drunk driver.

 

Nataanii has returned to school, and everybody in town is thrilled that he’ll once again be the celebrated champion of the Warriors basketball team. Nobody is happier than Coach Heather Hobbs (Jessica Matten), who relies on him to rally everybody’s spirits. She understands that his leadership eases any awkwardness the boys might have, being coached by (ahem) a woman.

 

Alas, matters quickly take a tragic — but not unexpected — turn.

 

Lacking her star player, and with Jimmy and his teammates emotionally shattered, their first season game — against the Santa Fe Catholic Coyotes, their hated rivals — is an embarrassing disaster.

 

Heather hopes to groom Jimmy into the leadership role, but he has a lot on his emotional plate. Aside from having lost his best friend, his mother Gloria (Julia Jones) — a single parent — is a longtime alcoholic who relies on him for financial support; that means additional shifts at the burger joint where he works.

 

Gloria is sullen, often angry, and chronically depressed; Jones handles this role with grim authenticity. When Jimmy asks why she never attends the games, to watch him play, her reply is a gut-punch: “I don’t want to see you fail.”

The Long Game: Hole in one!

The Long Game (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for mild profanity, racial slurs and brief rude material

Available via: Netflix and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.28.24

We’ve enjoyed an impressive run of fact-based sports sagas during the past year — Nyad, The Boys in the Boat and Young Woman and the Sea leap to mind — but in terms of amazing actual events, this one’s the best.

 

As JB (Jay Hernandez, standing center) quietly waits, a clearly surprised Frank
(Dennis Quaid) absorbs the passion that these boys possess, for the game of golf...
and then agrees to coach their fledgling high school team.

Director Julio Quintana’s well mounted drama ticks all the boxes: engaging characters, well played by a strong cast; a story that focuses equally on relationships, racism and distressing history; and a reminder that passion, when properly applied, can move mountains.

And — oh, yes — it’s also about golf: defined so superbly in 2000’s The Legend of Bagger Vance as “a game that cannot be won, only played.”

 

Quintana and co-scripters Paco Farias and Jennifer C. Stetson based their story on Humberto G. Garcia’s 2012 nonfiction book, Mustang Miracle ... and they didn’t need to change much. The actual events are cinematic all by themselves.

 

The year is 1956, the setting Del Rio, Texas. World War II veteran JB Pena (Jay Hernandez) and his wife, Lucy (Jaina Lee Ortiz) have just moved into town; he has accepted a job as superintendent of the local (segregated) high school. He also loves to golf, and hopes to become a member of the local San Felipe Country Club.

 

Alas, sponsorship by close friend and war buddy Frank Mitchell (Dennis Quad) isn’t enough to overcome the club’s color barrier, or the patronizing attitudes of Judge Milton Cox (Brett Cullen) and club director Don Glenn (Richard Robichaux), who function as this story’s racist villains. 

 

“I’m afraid there’s just no place for you here,” JB is told.

 

Both Cullen and Robichaux are persuasively snobbish and condescending, to a degree that makes one want to reach into the screen and smack them.

 

Of course, the club’s white members have no trouble hiring Latino high school kids as caddies, as long as they “know their place.” Toe the line, and they might even get a five-cent tip.

 

Young Woman and the Sea: Goes for the gold

Young Woman and the Sea (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and partial nudity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.2.24

Inspirational sports movies don’t come much better than this one.

 

Norwegian director Joachim Rønning has swum similar fact-based waters before, with 2012’s rugged and equally compelling Kon-Tiki. But this new film has a sparkling buoyance courtesy of its strongest asset: an effervescent and thoroughly persuasive performance by star Daisy Ridley. She’s radiant.

 

Dinners in the Eberle household often are a boisterous affair: from left, Henry Jr.
(Ethan Rouse), Henry (Kim Bodnia), Gertrude (Jeanette Hain), Trudy (Daisy Ridley)
and Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey).

Jeff Nathanson’s script, adapted from Glenn Stout’s 2009 non-fiction book of the same title, massages a few minor details but is rigorously authentic with respect to the significant events of Trudy Ederle’s life and career. Indeed, she became so astonishingly famous, for her time, that it’s incomprehensible that obscurity claimed her until only recently.

(In a recent article for the London Daily Telegraph, journalist Simon Briggs cheekily compares her to champion racehorse Seabiscuit, who in the late 1930s was just as celebrated as Ederle had been in the 1920s ... but similarly vanished from the historical record until being profiled in Laura Hillenbrand’s sensational 1999 best-seller, which in turn prompted a 2003 film.)

 

Rønning’s film opens in 1910, in a German neighborhood in Manhattan, New York. Five-year-old Trudy (Olive Abercrombie) unexpectedly survives a bout with measles: an illness that coincides with the PS General Slocum steamboat tragedy, which caught fire and sank in the East River, killing 1,021 people. Most were women and children, who remained on the boat because they couldn’t swim, and were terrified of the water.

 

(This steamboat disaster actually occurred in June 1904, which doesn’t quite fit Nathanson’s timeline ... but it serves a substantial dramatic purpose.)

 

Galvanized by the thought of so many needless deaths, Trudy’s severe yet caring mother, Gertrude (a warm and richly nuanced performance by Jeanette Hain), resolves that her children will learn how to swim. All of her children, which includes Trudy’s older sister Meg (Lilly Aspell), at a time when the mere thought of women — of any age — in the water, was considered laughable and/or scandalous.

 

This view is shared by the girls’ stubborn father, Henry (Kim Bodnia), a butcher with old-country sensibilities and a firm believer in rules, who abjectly refuses this plan. Trudy’s hilarious ploy to wear him down involves a popular period foxtrot song that becomes a mantra throughout this film (and an ear-worm that I’ve yet to shake, days later).

 

The Beautiful Game: Earns a silver

The Beautiful Game (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13 for profanity, drug references and fleeting partial nudity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.26.24

The past couple of months have been quite educational, with respect to sport I’d never previously encountered: first adventure racing, in Arthur the King; and now the Homeless World Cup.

 

The bulk of England's Homeless World Cup team — from left, Jason (Sheyi Cole),
Cal (Kit Young), Nathan (Callum Scott Howells), Kevin (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and
Aldar (Robin Nazari) — watch with a blend of awe and disgust as their newest
teammate struts his stuff.

The latter is the public side of the Homeless World Cup Association, co-founded in 2001 by Mel Young and Harald Schmied, as a means of advocating for a global solution to homelessness. Players must be at least 16; have not taken part in previous Homeless World Cup tournaments; and be either homeless, asylum seekers, street vendors or active in drug/alcohol rehab treatment following homelessness.

The playing field follows the rules of street soccer, on a pitch 72-by-52 feet (as opposed to international soccer’s 110-120 by 70-80 yards). The result is a faster, high-action and high-scoring format. Annual tournaments began in 2003, until canceled by Covid; they resumed in 2023, with that year’s World Cup held right here in Sacramento. (Would that I had known!)

 

Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce has been trying to get his script made into a film for more than a decade; this heartwarming little film helmed by director Thea Sharrock is the long-awaited result. (In a total change of pace, she also directed Wicked Little Letters, also reviewed this week.)

 

Boyce’s characters are entirely fictitious, but the environment in which they’re placed — notably, the ramp-up to World Cup play, and the challenges faced by typical participants — is rigorously accurate. As a cherry on top, many of the players in non-speaking roles are former Homeless World Cup participants, who now are no longer homeless.

 

The story begins as Mal Bradley (Bill Nighy) — a retired footballer, now manager of England’s Homeless team — readies players for his 12th shot at top position, with this year’s tournament to be played in Rome. The team includes Nathan (Callum Scott Howells), Cal (Kit Young), Jason (Sheyi Cole), Aldar (Robin Nazari) and Kevin (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor). As the film begins, Mal persuades a reluctant Vinny (Micheal Ward) to complete the half-dozen.

 

This doesn’t go over well with the others, who’ve bonded during (we assume) several preceding months. Living down to their worst expectations, Vinny has a chip on his shoulder the size of Montana, and clearly believes himself superior to the others (which proves true, but is beside the point). Worse yet, Vinny contemptuously feels no need to acknowledge that there’s no “I” in “team,” and he rebuffs efforts at kumbaya friendliness.

 

In short, he’s a horse’s ass.

 

Arthur the King: Needlessly overcooked

Arthur the King (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Director Simon Cellan Jones’ modest drama has three highlights: an extreme sport that’ll likely be new to most viewers, a really cool dog, and the benefit of being inspired by actual events.

 

The kayaking portion their race would be punishing enough under ordinary circumstances,
but Leo (Simu Liu, foreground) and Michael (Mark Wahlberg) find it even more taxing
with the large, water-soaked Arthur as an additional passenger.

That said, Michael Brandt’s script — very loosely based on Mikael Lindnord’s popular 2016 non-fiction book — leans too heavily on melodramatic macho nonsense, and also stretches truth to a degree that’ll lift both eyebrows. The result often feels like a TV movie with delusions of big-screen grandeur, but — even so — it’s family-friendly entertainment, which has gotten rather rare lately.

The sport in question is “adventure racing,” a multidisciplinary team activity that typically involves alternately running, hiking, climbing, bicycling and kayaking over hundreds of miles of wilderness terrain. The clock never stops; competitors must choose if or when to rest — and for how long — while restocking supplies at mandatory “transition areas.” Route decisions and GPS navigation are up to each team.

 

Mark Wahlberg stars as Michael Light, an Americanized version of Lindnord introduced toward the conclusion of one such competition. He foolishly leads his team to failure during a final leg, when the tide goes out, and strands their kayaks in mud flats. The resulting tirade leaves Michael estranged from teammate Leo (Simu Liu), and one choice image of the messy disaster erupts on social media, subsequently haunting Michael at every turn.

 

Several years pass, during which Michael continues to train in the gorgeous terrain surrounding the Colorado mountain home he shares with wife Helen (Julie Rylance), who has retired from the sport in order to raise their young daughter. Michael is the epitome of stubborn single-mindedness; he’s determined to take one more shot at the world championship that has eluded him thus far.

 

(We wonder, at about this point, what Helen and the under-employed Michael are living on. Air?)

 

Elsewhere, in the Dominican Republic’s capital city, a scruffy brown street dog does his best to survive. As the story proceeds, Cellan Jones frequently cuts back to this bedraggled mutt’s wanderings.

 

Adventure racing is expensive, and requires sponsorship: a complication, given Michael’s well-known reputation for being bull-headed. He nonetheless perseveres with the executives at the sports firm Broadrail, albeit with conditions: most notably, their insistence that his now-nemesis Leo be on the team. 

 

Cue more snarky posturing between Wahlberg and Liu.

Chang Can Dunk: A worthy lay-up

Chang Can Dunk (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for mild profanity

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang

Being a teenager was hard enough, back in the day. Foolishly rash or lamentable behavior was seen only by a gaggle of kids in the school corridor, or perhaps everybody in a single classroom.

 

In this social media era, the entire world becomes witness. How’s that for pressure?

 

Foolish, foolish boy: Bad enough that Chang (Bloom Li, foreground right) makes a rash
bet with school basketball nemesis Matt (Chase Liefeld) ... but he does it in front of
dozens of other kids, all of whom immediately turn the moment viral.

Writer/director Jingyi Shao makes an impressive feature debut with Chang Can Dunk, an engaging coming-of-maturity saga that focuses on the title character, sensitively played by Bloom Li. He’s a 16-year-old member of his high school marching band, who allows himself to be goaded into an impossible challenge.

Shao obviously remembers his own teen years; this saga of teenage angst, peer pressure, popularity and “fitting in” is equal parts motivating, aw-shucks endearing and wincingly embarrassing.

 

Band members have been branded high school nerds ever since their uniforms became de rigueur, and that hasn’t changed in the 21st century. Chang’s social circle therefore is quite small, limited primarily to best friend and fellow drummer Bo (Ben Wang).

 

The story begins on the first day of Chang’s sophomore year, which he has spent the entire summer envisioning will be far superior to the one before. He’s desperate to be liked, and considered cool; to that end, he has made himself over with a new haircut and wardrobe.

 

Bo, comfortable in his own skin, is puzzled by this transformation. He couldn’t care less if he’s viewed as a dork; he’s clearly playing the long game (and likely will wind up CEO of the company that employs some of his condescending school mates).

 

Besides which, and much to Chang’s disappointment, it quickly becomes obvious that he’s still viewed the same as before.

 

Matters are worsened when a new student, Kristy (Zoe Renee), joins the band’s drum unit. Chang’s crush is instantaneous, and the feeling initially seems mutual … until Kristy also is noticed and pursued by Matt (Chase Liefeld), the high school basketball star. Wanting to be admired for the same reason, Chang rashly bets that he can dunk a basketball by Homecoming, 11 weeks away.

 

Chang, it should be mentioned, is 5-foot-8.

 

Creed III: Punches at its weight

Creed III (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense sports action, violence and profanity-laced song lyrics

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.3.23

This spin-off boxing series finally dances on its own two feet, having outgrown its Rocky Balboa roots.

 

Nice to see.

 

The calm before the impending storm: Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) enjoys some quality
time with his wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and their daughter Amara
(Mila Davis-Kent)

The script — from Ryan Coogler, Keegan Coogler and Zach Baylin — delivers a satisfying blend of intimate family drama and riveting pugilistic action, along with a mystery that keeps folks guessing for awhile.

Star Michael B. Jordan also makes his directorial debut here. While he deserves credit for mounting a satisfying sports drama, he also has himself frequently framed in tight close-up by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau (a frequent vanity misstep by actors-turned-first-time-directors).

 

And although this series always has threatened to drown in soggy melodrama, this newest entry again skates close to the edge, but (happily) doesn’t descend into slushy sentimentality.

 

The core plot stands on its own, but viewers unfamiliar with the two earlier films may be puzzled by some of the family dynamics, notably the (apparently) strained relationship between Adonis Creed (Jordan) and his beloved mother, Mary-Anne (Phylicia Rashad). 

 

The film opens on a flashback that expands on our hero’s origin. It’s 2002, and 15-year-old Adonis (Thaddeus J. Mixson) sneaks out of his house late on evening, in order to watch his slightly older best friend, Damian Anderson (Spence Moore II), win a key boxing match. The two bonded during the two years they lived in a juvenile center, when Damian schooled Adonis in the “sweet science.”

 

Following Damian’s victory, while stopping for snacks at a convenience store, — a suddenly enraged Adonis starts beating on an older guy who exits the place. (And we think, what the heck?)

 

Cue two sudden cuts: the first showcasing the adult Adonis winning the bout that makes him World Heavyweight Champion, and then — just as quickly — several years later, to the present day. Adonis has retired and now runs the Delphi Boxing Academy with his former cornerman, Tony “Little Duke” Burton (Wood Harris). Current champ Felix Chavez (Jose Benavidez) is in residence, as Delphi’s star boxer.

 

Adonis shares his lavish Bel Air home with loving wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson), whose previous life as a pop performer has blossomed into an equally successful career as a music producer. They dote on young daughter Amara (Mila Davis-Kent, absolutely adorable), whose deafness hasn’t harmed her spirit.

 

Jordan and Davis-Kent share marvelous chemistry, and this story’s father/daughter sequences are totally charming. Amara worships her father, and wants to learn more about boxing … to Bianca’s dismay. Particularly since the little girl tends to settle school disagreements with a punch.

 

(Davis-Kent actually is deaf, which adds a solid touch of authenticy to her performance.)

Rise: A slam dunk

Rise (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for brief minor profanity

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang

In a perfect world, talent would trump race, creed, nationality, citizenship and any other artificial barriers erected to discourage it.

 

But sometimes, even in our imperfect world, perseverance triumphs.

 

Charles (Dayo Okeniyi, center) and his two sons — Thanasis (Ral Agada, left) and
Giannis (Uche Agada) — aren't about to let a little bit of rain interrupt some
high-spirited hoop action.

Director Akin Omotoso’s deeply moving film is based on the jaw-dropping life story of the Antetokounmpo family, and most particularly their resilient, resolute and devoted parents, Charles and Veronika. It’s the sort of saga that makes the rest of us take a hard look at our levels of ambition and productivity.

Given the blend of Nigerian heritage, Turkish and Greek locales, Arash Amel’s script can’t help acknowledging the racism, xenophobia and shelter uncertainty that the Antetokounmpo family face on a regular basis — over the course of many, many years — but the tone is more matter-of-fact than strident (which, honestly, makes each such encounter even more wrenching).

 

The story begins with a brief prologue in Turkey, as migrants Charles (Dayo Okeniyi) and Veronika (Yetide Badaki) are one panicked step ahead of thuggish immigration police. Driven to a drastic decision in order to cross the border — shades of Sophie’s Choice — they successfully flee into Greece.

 

Several years pass. Charles and Veronika work hard at a variety of menial jobs, while raising two young sons, Giannis (McColm Cephas Jr.) and Thanasis (Chinua Baraka Payne). Their meager incomes are supplemented by hawking sunglasses and other colorful knickknacks in Athens tourist zones: a dodgy activity that occasionally attracts the wrong sort of attention from the Greek police.

 

The boys develop an interest in soccer.

 

More time passes. Giannis and Thanasis have grown into lithe, lanky teenagers (now played by actual brothers Uche and Ral Agada); the family has been augmented by additional young sons Kostas (Jaden Osimuwa) and Alexandros (Elijah Sholanke). 

 

Charles and Veronika have begun quietly careful efforts to become legal, but the system is deliberately designed to thwart this: They need proof of “real” jobs in order to achieve citizenship, but they must be citizens in order to be hiredinto “real” jobs. The immigration clerk seems kind, but she’s utterly useless. (We want to reach into the screen and smack her.)

 

The Phantom of the Open: Cheekily spirited

The Phantom of the Open (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Not quite two months ago, The Duke treated us to the delightfully dramatized account of disabled pensioner Kempton Bunton, and 1961’s “mysterious” theft of a famed Goya painting from London’s National Gallery.

 

Maurice Flitcroft may have been even more eccentric.

 

With son Gene (Christian Lees) bringing up the rear as caddy, Maurice Flitcroft
(Mark Rylance) blithely trudges to the next tee, oblivious to the catastophic score
that he's racking up.

In 1976, with no golfing experience, Maurice — by claiming to be a professional — audaciously conned his way into the qualifying competition for that year’s British Open Championship. After all, the event was “open” … right?

His resulting score was — and remains — historic.

 

And, just as Bunton’s eventual court case prompted British law to clarify the distinction between “theft” and “borrowing,” Flitcroft’s escapade thoroughly annoyed the snooty aristocrats who ran the British Open; they quickly changed the rules, in an effort to prevent any further “incursions” by undeserving members of the lay public.

 

Not that that stopped Maurice, during subsequent years.

 

His unlikely saga has been made into a cheeky dramedy — in the irreverent style that British filmmakers do so well — by director Craig Roberts and screenwriter Simon Farnaby, the latter adapting sports journalist Scott Murray’s 2010 non-fiction book of the same title.

 

Their film is highlighted by yet another richly nuanced performance from Mark Rylance, whose impersonation of Flitcroft is flat-out astonishing. 

 

Rylance is, without question, one of today’s finest, most artfully accomplished actors. I’ve no doubt that watching him in everyday mundane tasks — such as purchasing groceries — would be just as captivating as what he does on screen.

 

Roberts and Farnaby begin their film with a prologue that sketches Maurice’s earlier days. He meets and marries Jean (Sally Hawkins), and adopts her son Michael; they subsequently augment the family with twin sons Gene and James. 

 

Years pass. Michael (Jake Davies) has grown up to become the mature, business-minded “sensible” son — read: buttoned-down twit with a stick up his fundament — while Gene and James (twins Christian and Jonah Lees), clearly more in tune with their father’s Walter Mitty nature, have become limber disco dancers.

The Way Back: Sports as life

The Way Back (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for frequent profanity 
By Derrick Bang

Well-crafted underdog sagas are can’t-miss cinema.

Redemption sagas are even better.

This film deftly blends the two, with inspiring results.

Former basketball great Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck, right) initially finds little to love
when confronted with the lackadaisical members of the Bishop Hayes High School team;
even so, he soon spots untapped potential in some of the squad members.

Director Gavin O’Connor has an affinity for such material, having previously helmed 2004’s Miracle and 2011’s Warrior; just as crucially, he has an eye and ear for the interpersonal dynamics of people under stress. Given that The Way Back dives deep into the self-destructive anger that arises from unfathomable anguish, O’Connor and co-scripter Brad Ingelsby are blessed by a stand-out performance from star Ben Affleck.

Jack Cunningham (Affleck) works heavy construction by day, just this side of somnambulance after having collapsed into bed, dead drunk, each previous night. He consumes a case of beer during dinner, spends the rest of every evening at his favorite dive bar — where it obviously isn’t good that “everybody knows his name” — and by day conceals straight vodka in his stainless steel travel mug.

He’s taciturn, withdrawn and quick to anger: a barely functioning, late-stage alcoholic.

Family gatherings are tense, more so because of the hostility radiating from his sister, Beth (Michaela Watkins). She’s brittle and critical, neither of which ameliorates the dynamic; we sense her lack of patience results — in part — from long-simmering sibling rivalry. At the same time, we cannot miss the pain in Watkins’ gaze; Beth nonetheless loves her brother, and chafes at her inability to help.

O’Connor and Ingelsby are patient; answers do come, but only eventually and organically, as situations evolve.

Absent some sort of intervention, Jack is on course to drink himself to death. Then, unexpectedly, the fateful phone call: from Bishop Hayes High School, where — 25 years earlier — he was a basketball phenom granted a full university scholarship. Father Edward Devine (John Aylward, making the most of his congenial gruffness) is in desperate need of a replacement basketball coach. 

Remembering Jack’s glory days, and unaware of the mess he’s made of his life since then, Father Devine offers him the job.

The Miracle Season: Failure to spike

The Miracle Season (2018) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.6.18

Inspirational sports sagas tend to be bullet-proof, and even this one builds to an exhilarating climax.

Getting there, however, is another matter entirely.

Caroline "Line" Found (Danika Yarosh, No, 9) and a cluster of her teammates — from left,
Kelley Fliehler (Erin Moriarty, No. 19), Taylor (Lillian Doucet-Roche, No. 14), Brie (Tiera
Skovbye, No. 8) and Mack (Natalie Sharp) — get ready for another intense volleyball drill.

Granted, The Miracle Season is based on actual events, but that’s no excuse for director Sean McNamara — aided and abetted by scripters David Aaron Cohen and Elissa Matsuida — to lard the pathos with a trowel. So many tight-tight-tight close-ups of tears and quivering lips. The pregnant pauses, long-suffering sighs and anguished glances heavenward. Melodramatic dialogue so insufferably sugary-sweet that it’ll send insulin-dependent viewers into a diabetic coma. The swelling orchestral flourishes from Roque Baños’ histrionic score.

McNamara makes no secret of his desire to craft — whether as director, writer or producer — wholesome, family-friendly dramas; one need only read his IMDB bio. That’s well and good, but there’s a chasm of atmospheric distinction between “wholesome” and “gag-inducing sentimental slush.”

I kept waiting for some of this film’s performers to throw up their arms, burst into a heartrending Shakespearean soliloquy, and expire on camera.

It genuinely grieves me to be so mean-spirited, given McNamara’s sincere intent, and the authentic real-world tragedy-turned-triumph that inspired his film ... but that’s the problem. He tries much, much too hard; he should have had more faith in the strength of the story itself, and trusted his audience to “get it,” without jerking his puppet master strings so blatantly. And repeatedly.

The setting is Iowa City’s West High School, where newly minted seniors and longtime best buds Caroline Found (Danika Yarosh) and Kelley Fliehler (Erin Moriarty) eagerly await the start of volleyball season, revved up to repeat their previous year’s championship victory. Coach Kathy “Brez” Bresnahan (Helen Hunt), while sharing this desire, wisely cautions against cockiness and entitlement.

As a redundant voice-over narrator needlessly informs us, during a Hallmark greeting-card prologue, Caroline — everybody calls her “Line” — is one of the magical, charismatic wonders who inspires everybody to be better versions of themselves.