The greatest sin a basketball film or TV series can commit is to enlist actors who can’t actually play basketball. More than any other sport, there’s a peculiar muscle memory to its locomotion that simply can’t be convincingly faked — most kids learn to run or throw a ball by virtue of existing in the world, but shooting a basketball or developing legitimate handles requires a different kind of learned coordination entirely. A fair question some may ask, then, is if it’s such a big deal to suspend disbelief when we see a character we’re told is skilled in the sport bumbling around the court with all the athleticism of Gumby? Well, usually, yes. When a performer’s unconvincing physicality requires shooting and cutting the action in such a way as to disguise the unreality of the sequence, viewers are typically left with a garbled mess of unparseable scene choreography, mostly an ugly assemblage of running up and down the court and basketballs flying through the air, with nothing of the balletic artistry that informs the sport to be found. In other instances, tone can be fatally ruptured: it’s tough to recall a more unintentionally comedic cinematic moment than Edward Norton’s two-handed reverse dunk in American History X; if this writer had money riding on it, he’d take Air Bud over Ed in a game of one-on-one. Besides, it’s expected that performers in a Hollywood musical can hold a tune and it’s been proven that action stars can convincingly and authentically master martial arts, boxing, gunplay, and all other manner of stuntwork — Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt wouldn’t work very well, formally or otherwise, if buddy ran like Ansel Elgort.
All of which is to say, one of the things Rez Ball gets right is that its hoopers can actually hoop. Directed by Sydney Freeland and co-written and EP’d by Sterlin Harjo, both Indigenous artists, the film evinces a palpable respect for the sport, understanding not just the importance of believable presentation on screen, but also the sport’s deep ties to Native American culture. Freeland recently addressed both points in an interview:
“It was very important for me that these kids could play basketball,” Freeland told Netflix about casting the film. “As a big basketball fan, nothing takes me out of the movie quicker than seeing someone who can’t play. Fortunately, we identified that there was a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of Native actors and Native actors that could play basketball, because basketball is so prevalent in these Native communities.”
While not explicitly interrogating the causation of this prevalence, Rez Ball adopts a Hoosiers-esque template of following one high school basketball team’s challenge-filled season — including the star player’s suicide — which allows Freeland and Harjo to explore the grace that the sport offers its players, specifically here Indigenous youth contending with the inheritances of tragedy and fatalism, but also hope and transcendence. To this end, newcomer Kauchani Bratt offers an appealing grounding force, effortlessly charming in lighter moments and rich in interiority when asked to match the film’s dramatic beats.
Unfortunately, while there’s an interesting argument to be made for applying the inspirational sports film treatment to a specifically Indigenous narrative, which are too often reduced to catalogs of indignities in service of assuaging white, neoliberal guilt and are certainly due a no-frills, feel-good texturing, Rez Ball simply is too dogged in hitting the most familiar of beats. Particularly considered within the shadow of Harjo’s recently finished Reservation Dogs, which so movingly held both humor and pathos in its hands and spun up rich, complex characters, Freeland’s film feels less like an individuated project than a checklist of any number of aughts-era high school sports films, barely rising above the likes of Disney Channel Original Movies to reach the low, low heights of films like We Are Marshall or Glory Road. Had Freeland and Harjo been more willing to wrestle with the thematic and historical import implied in the film’s title and explore the weight of these kinds of triumphs on the specific community and culture it depicts — which the book Rez Ball is ostensibly based on but really only takes conceptual inspiration from, Michael Powell’s Canyon Dreams, does with a measure of insight and nuance — a thornier, more genuinely moving film would have certainly arisen. It’s tough to say, in the absence of any deeper in-film consideration on why the inspo model was employed, what exactly motivated Rez Ball’s overt genericism, but it results in a disservice that flattens any complicated humanity to stock types.
There’s also the issue of the film’s basketball sequences. While the legitimate skill at the filmmakers’ disposal makes for a more authentic portrait of top-tier high school athletics, these sequences are lacking in artfulness and compelling kineticism, overly edited to the point of feeling stitched together, cuts arriving in a flurry and leaving one wishing for sustained shots that would better admire the actors’ abilities and replicate the adrenaline of a live sporting event. And the film’s would-be climactic state tournament plays on almost literal fast-forward, refusing even the illusion of suspense; given the film’s general disposition, the state finals are, of course, assured, but it’s nonetheless a bizarre choice and a missed opportunity to at least montage some impressive footage. So while it’s nice to see Netflix throwing money at projects guided by diverse voices instead of yet another work of mid-concept horror rehash, there’s simply no room for a distinct voice or vision to emerge from the morass of sports film similitude that fills Rez Ball to bursting, and little formalism to distract from that lack. It’s unclear if this is Netflix house style pressing down too hard upon the project or simply misguided and underdeveloped conceptualization on the part of the filmmakers, but in the interest of being generous to artists who have produced far better, more singular work in the past outside the shadow of corporate monoliths, an old sports adage seems the safest conclusion: don’t hate the player, hate the game.
DIRECTOR: Sydney Freeland; CAST: Kachauni Bratt, Jessica Matten, Julia Jones, Devin Sampson Craig; DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix; STREAMING: September 27; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 51 min.
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