Murderball is a fantastic documentary about quadriplegic rugby. It introduces us to the sport, some of the world class players on the US national team, a rivalry between the US and Canada, and culminates at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens. A lot of people will be turned off by the topic and not see this film and that is a shame because I can't imagine anyone not liking this film.
The film starts with an introduction to the game. Players play in wheelchairs (obviously) on an indoor court with a volleyball. The players all seem to have no use of their legs and partial use of their arms. They must dribble or pass the ball every ten seconds. They score by crossing a goal line in full possession of the ball. Scores seems to typically get into the low twenties. Those seem to be the only rules. Players ram each other and do anything else to prevent a goal and gain possession of the ball. Their wheelchairs look like something out of Mad Max (or maybe Junkyard Wars) with metal shields and bumpers and are heavily dented from wear. You can see why the game was originally called "murderball". When players topple over, a referee calls time and rights them up.
We then get to meet some of the players and their back stories. Some were injured in accidents others from disease. They describe some of the difficulties of coming to terms with their condition saying it takes about 4 years to get passed the "mind fuck" of it all. We meet a man who is 4 months after his injury, going through rehab and going home for the first time and becoming angry and upset seeing his house with ramps and wheelchair accessible bathrooms and closets, he says it was sinking in that it won't return to normal, that this is now normal. Later on players visit his hospital and explain murderball to him and he's interested and inspired. The players also visit injured veterans returning from Iraq and help them through their healing process.
Jeff Zupan is the current star player for the Americans. He's an aggressive and intimidating player. He was injured in high school when he passed out in the bed of his best friends pickup. His friend while driving home drunk got into an accident and Jeff was thrown out of the truck into a stream where he hung on for over 13 hours before help arrived. His friend never knew he was in the truck and they haven't spoken in years. We're shown their 10 year high school reunion and some of the classmates fill us in on their personalities. A classmate says he was an asshole before the accident and he's more of one now. Joe Soares was the best player on the American team but got older and slowed down and was cut. He was very angry and began a legal battle that ended with him deciding to coach Team Canada. The film highlights the rivalry between Team USA and Team Canada focused through Joe, he'll do anything to win and Team USA calls him a traitor. We meet Joe's family find out how his young violin playing son views his dad and how Joe raises him.
We meet other players too but what comes out is how these people are highly driven and normal people who just happen to be in wheelchairs. They live, laugh, dress, swear, love, fight, and have families just like everyone else. At least one lives on his own and most seem to have active sex lives (it's takes about 20 minutes on average before a girl they meet in a bar will ask if "it" works). Well they're not quite normal, they are olympic class atheletes who travel the world and are highly competitive (Team USA is 12 members picked from 500 applicants). I saw it at the Independent Film Festival of Boston but it's going out to limited release in the US on July 9, 2005. Catch it, this is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.
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