Murderball (2005)

(On DVD, February 2006) You have thirty seconds, tops, at the start of Murderball to feel sorry for the wheelchair-bound stars of the movie. After that, it’s a macho sports fest until the end. A documentary about the sport of Quad Rugby, Murderball features trash talk, intense competitiveness and unbelievable action. There’s plenty of conflict to go around (Canadians even get the bonus of seeing “their” team beat the Americans) and the film is snappy from start to finish. The sport sequences themselves have a good energy to them and the rest of the documentary is as slick as you want it to be. The film definitely doesn’t allow you to “forget” that its protagonists are in wheelchairs, but it certainly goes past that simple evidence to something far more interesting, and definitely enjoyable. Yet another solid documentary in a very strong field, Murderball is worth a good look.