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.

 

In the Heights: The highest high

In the Heights (2021) • View trailer

Five stars. Rated PG-13, for mild profanity and suggestive references

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

Like, wow.

 

The sheer, dazzling exuberance of this film is breathtaking; we’ve rarely (never?) seen this much energy on the big screen.

 

Benny (Corey Hawkins, left) trades quips — and rat-a-tat lyrics — in the impressively
stocked bodega run by Usnavi (Anthony Roberts, right), with assistance from hi
younger cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV).

If you were impressed by the initial freeway dance in La La Land — and who wasn’t? — wait until you experience the opening sequence in this stunner. I’ve never seen so many dance extras in a single number. (Literally hundreds, all named in the end credits.)

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights already was a knockout on Broadway, winning four of its 13 Tony Award nominations (including, no kidding, Best Musical). Director Jon M. Chu and choreographer Christopher Scott have done the impossible here, by improving on perfection; they’ve “opened up” the play in a way that takes full advantage of the film medium.

 

When people talk about the cinematic “sense of wonder,” this is the sort of razzmatazz they’re thinking about.

 

In the Heights preceded Miranda’s Hamilton, and in some ways is more approachable and audience-friendly. It’s a bit shorter, and the character palette isn’t nearly as extensive. The interwoven stories are traditional — almost clichéd — but Miranda and co-scripter Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the book for the stage production) make them fresh and vibrant, thanks to Miranda’s freestyle rap/patter/hip-hop musical signature: a style unmistakably his own.

 

Add plenty of salsa, R&B, bachata, merengue and pop — along with other stuff I likely couldn’t identify — and the result is, well, spectacular. Cinematographer Alice Brooks is kept very busy, and she rises to the occasion.

 

It all borders on light opera, but not quite; we do get moments of spoken dialogue in between the two dozen (or so) musical numbers. 

 

Events take place over the course of a few days, in the primarily Dominican neighborhood of New York City’s Washington Heights. Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos) owns and runs a small bodega, assisted by his younger cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV); the establishment, adjacent to the 181st Street subway stop, is something of a focal point for all the locals, who find a reason to visit at least once a day.

 

Usnavi also narrates this saga, via a framing device set somewhen else, and someplace else — a beach? — while four enthralled young listeners hang onto every word.

 

He has long been sweet on the stunningly gorgeous Vanessa (Melissa Barrera). She works in a neighborhood salon run by the larger-than-life Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega), who cheerfully encourages the often racy gossip exchanged among her clientele. Alas, Usnavi lacks the courage to approach Vanessa, who — although friendly — seems oblivious; she dreams of a high-profile career in fashion about 170 blocks south of the Heights.