Get the latest gossip
‘Rez Ball’ Review: Sydney Freeland’s Brisk Basketball Drama Takes a Fast Break From Tradition
A basketball tale out of Navajo Nation puts a different spin on the underdog sports drama in LeBron James-produced 'Rez Ball.'
But it is genuinely jarring when the obligatory talk early on about the future between star players Jimmy (Kauchani Bratt) and Nataanii (Kusem Goodwind) looking out into the distance of their home in New Mexico starts with the latter asking the former, “Do you ever think about getting out?” and it’s clear he’s referring to life itself rather than going off to college elsewhere. Although “Rez Ball” plays a bit differently from other basketball stories, it takes great pains to look like every contemporary one that was made at a studio level, a mildly transgressive act when life on the reservation is typically filtered through a grittier lens. When the finale revolves around a second matchup with Santa Fe Catholic, a team that blew out the Huskies earlier in the season, it can be amusing to think that cultural appropriation is actually working for the Indigenous community in this case — a spin on how that trope is typically handled in sports movies.
Or read this on Variety