Reinvigorating the Wheel: 'Murderball's' Impassioned Turn

BLESSING

The way we do it around here is, an editor, who knows our little fears, hates, twitches and perversities, makes the decisions. It's much better that way: no plotting to get this or that picture to review, no clique-forming political maneuvering, no begging or whining. You just do what your name is on and shut up.

So when I saw my name on "Murderball," I said, "Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Well, I said it to myself, which is okay, by the film critic's code of professional stoicism. But I felt it, because I didn't want to spend an hour and 40 minutes in a wheelchair with anyone. I didn't have the energy to feel sorry for anyone else. Of course, it rained the night of the screening, I had trouble finding parking, I was late, I was hungry. Everything was against poor "Murderball."

You know where this is going, of course. It was a fabulous experience, as the documentary, directed by Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro, transcended its formal membership of Inspiring Handicap Movies and instead just became the thing I love the most, a hell of a good story.

It helped that the directors found the U.S. Quad Rugby Team at the absolute zenith of a two-year professional and personal crisis, when an old star had defected to and was now coaching the hated Canadians and the guys he left in his bitter wake were absolutely dedicated to stopping him from getting what he wanted (the gold medal, which had gone to the Americans for years and years.)

It helped also that the bad blood between the man who left and the men who stayed was thick and bitter and propelled each to levels of maximum effort.

It helped that wheelchair rugby turns out to be a violent, graceful, vivid game that yields its secrets easily to film cameras, and it helped that the three games that counted the most were so close.

But, as in all great stories, what mattered most were the characters.

Ex-American star and new Canadian coach Joe Soares is a type familiar to anyone who ever hung out in a gym: He was the master athlete who let the game not merely fill, but become, his life. He couldn't let go; it was his ego, his subconscious, his dream world, his constant obsession, even to the point of ignoring his own family. You can see this guy sleeping on a cot in his office to get more work done and pushing his men beyond their limits, ruthlessly striving for perfection.

His opposite number and former friend was Mark Zupan, a pure road warrior who loved to compete and was fearless on the floor and unafraid to risk the constant collisions that spilled the players to the ground. Zupan, as it turns out, has the magic "it" of the "it-boy," meaning he has whatever it is that the camera just loves. When he was on screen you could not take your eyes off him.

So in the end, "Murderball" was about what most great movies are about, really: men of passion locked in combat so intense it melts the hair on the back of your hand.