The sport is quad rugby, also known as murderball. The players are quadriplegic men in tanked-up wheelchairs speeding down a court with a ball in their laps. The movie about their ferociously competitive spirit is a complete delight.
“Murderball” is not only a great documentary, but also a great sports flick, packed with action, drama, humor, sorrow, conflict and the jubilation of athletes swept up in their raucous, even reckless, drive to excel.
A storyteller could not ask for a more captivating roster of egos out to prove they and their comrades are No. 1 and everyone else is dirt beneath their wheels. These men are so flamboyant, hot-blooded, petulant, even egomaniacal that they would be right at home in a National Football League locker room.
Like pro football players, these wheelchair sportsmen can be a riveting, larger-than-life lot, men to like and admire despite their cockiness and obsessive natures, which sometimes prevent them from leaving the game back on the court.
Directors Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro present a tremendous mix of in-the-trenches action, interview segments and candid moments that paint rich portraits of the participants, their on-court fervor, their sideline dramas and crises.
The game plays like a combination of soccer, basketball, American football and a demolition derby that borders on the ferocity of the chariot race in “Ben-Hur.”
The players retain some upper-body mobility, racing back and forth in low-slung wheelchairs with cast-aluminum wheels, crashing into one another and sometimes toppling to the floor. Players with less arm motion handle defense, creeping in to block the man with the ball from crossing the goal line.
“Murderball” centers on the U.S. team, which has dominated international quad rugby for more than a decade. The filmmakers deftly structure the narrative like a three-act melodrama, each segment climaxing with a bitter showdown between the proud Americans and their upstart Canadian rivals.
Their matchups carry personal animosity. Joe Soares — long the superstar of the U.S. team, but now losing his touch in his 40s — fails to make the squad and resentfully crosses over to coach the Canadians.
Soares wants revenge against the team he feels abandoned him. To his former teammates, he’s a turncoat.
Paralyzed from childhood polio, Soares is a Vince Lombardi-like martinet demanding victory from his players and young son, who complains about having to fastidiously dust his father’s many, many rugby trophies.
Along with Soares, the filmmakers focus on dauntless U.S. player Mark Zupan, a man who seems to have barely missed a beat in his hyperactive life after the car crash that disabled him.
Despite his paralysis, Zupan’s body language retains an athlete’s swagger. A childhood pal affectionately remarks that Zupan was something of a jerk before his accident and remains one by nature, not out of bitterness at being in a wheelchair.
The story of Zupan’s injury is a remarkable tale of friendship turned tragic and a reunion full of grace. We won’t spoil it with details here; it’s best experienced as it plays out in front of Rubin and Shapiro’s camera.
Chosen as best U.S. documentary by audiences at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, “Murderball” unfolds with deep emotion but an utter lack of sentimentality, no traces of self-pity present in the quadriplegics.
The men frankly discuss their sex lives — techniques, prowess, positions. The movie addresses and quickly dismisses notions of diminished expectations among the wheelchair players or sympathetic cooings over how nice it is that the quadriplegics have their own little game.
These are athletes, and not necessarily nice guys. They are single-minded fiends, people who if not for accident or ailment would be weekend warriors in marathons, cycling, basketball or whatever they set their minds to.
Like Zupan’s friend — who says once a jerk, always a jerk — the movie affirms that normal is normal, and it’s not changed by losing the use of your limbs.
“Murderball” is not about lost potential. It’s about carrying on as always.