getting away with murder

A movie about a bunch of guys in wheelchairs shouldn'’t be this much fun. In the first few minutes of watching Murderball I felt like I shouldn't be staring at the guy in the chair. But less than an hour in I realized that I wasn'’t seeing his chair at all. Days later I'’m still thinking about it.

Murderball follows the stories of several members of the US National Quad Rugby team. It'’s one of the film's first mind-bends to conceive of quadriplegiclegics playing a contact sport, but as one of the guys in the movie says "What's the worst that can happen? We might break our necks?" It'’s this call-it-what-it-is-and-get-on-with-it style that reaches out and grabs you. Murderball'’s greatest strength is that finally you don't see an injury or even a piece of equipment. All you see is the man.

If you haven'’t seen Murderball I highly recommend it with this one caveat: this is a documentary that follows young male athletes. All of the language and graphic stories of the locker room are in this movie so if that's going to bother you, sit this one out.

As for me, I'’m still chewing on this one and I'’d say odds are good I'’ll be renting it again. Kudos to directors Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro for a job well done. Let team captian Mark Zupan and company take on all your assumptions about people in wheelchairs. Trust me, they can take it.