PG-13, 1 hr. 40 min. Directed By:
Steve Rash. Release Date:
May 18, 2012.
I walked in to this with a bad
attitude. I was hot, sweaty, and I have
a burning hatred for Brandon Routh that should probably send me to
therapy. I know nothing about lacrosse…
well, about the manner of play. I knew
that this was originally played by Native Americans and when I think of it now,
I mostly think of upper-middle and middle class white kids in private or prep
school leagues playing it.
So know that when I say that I loved
this movie, it had a very long way to go.
The cast isn’t great, but I did manage not to hate Brandon Routh. Not only wasn’t his character a total d-bag,
when itself is a total feat, but I didn’t spend the whole movie painfully aware
that he was acting. It’s a career
turning moment for a guy who’s spent most of his career as a joke, well, at
least within the pages of this blog. I
know that I’ve actively gone looking for his work on Netflix when I’m in a bad
mood and need to be mean to someone.
There’s not a single thing original
about this with the possible exception of the fact that it’s about football,
and not baseball, football or soccer.
More or less, if you’ve ever seen a sports underdog movie, you’ve seen
this one. But, and this is a big but, Broken Arrows throws a bunch of Native
Indian (I hate the term Native American, since technically, they immigrated
here, too, they just got the land bridge before the rest of us figured out how
to get here by sea) culture at us, and it didn’t feel fluffed up. If the culture was fiction, there’s a nugget
of truth in there somewhere, and I for one totally dug it. I actually plan on hitting up the lacrosse Wikipedia
entry at some point in the future in order to get a better historical and
cultural perspective. It’s a very rare
thing when a movie gets me in the research move.
This isn’t entirely family
friendly. Probably your tweens and up
can handle it. There’s no swearing, but
there are a few situations which could be uncomfy with younger kids in
tow. If you like lacrosse, or played
lacrosse once upon a time, you’ll probably love this (and if so, send me a
line, I’d like to learn more about the game).
This won’t win any awards, and it
won’t be my favorite movie of the summer, but this is a movie you might not
have heard of that you might want to take the time to see.
