Customer Reviews

The Heart of the Game

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I often enjoy documentaries - but I can't say i'm a huge fan of girls basketball, and moreso especially highschool girls basketball. However, this movie is awesome!! Edge of your seat excitement, real emotion, real people and the coach (Bill Resler) steals the show. You can't help but be touched by the story, and you'll also be laughing out loud too. It's not often for me that movies hit such a wide range of emotion - and I watch a lot of movies. Heart of the Game is a definite must-see if you like any of the following: comedy, action, drama, sports or uplifting stories. It's truly a film for every age and every gender. I don't often believe the movie critics out there - yet all of them seem to be raving about this film as much as me, so check it out!

This absorbing documentary is a fascinating study on the transcendence of sports and teamwork. It features a Seattle high school scrapping and clawing its way to the state basketball girls championship. Its star player, a young black single mother named Darnelia Russell becomes the focal point of the narrative as she must go to court against the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association to retain her eligibility for high school competition.

Coach Bill Ressler is an unorthodox tax professor turned basketball guru. He harbors and implements a number of quirky ideas which seem to work:

* drills were the girls lean on each other in order to overcome their phobia about physical contact
* players only meetings where the girls or sequestered for hours without coaches in order to resolve interpersonal rivalries and conflicts
* giving each team and animal theme for this season such as pack of wolves, school of Peron is, etc. for a motivational purposes

It becomes clear that Coach Ressler is not just coaching basketball but teaching life lessons. Whether you are a sports fan or not, you will be engrossed by this absorbing documentary of self-transcendence through the discipline of teamwork and athletics

You'll probably come to this film expecting to see a female version of the Academy Award winning documentary Hoop Dreams. At least I did. But it's much more than that. It's the story of a team and it's players but it's also the story of their amazing coach - college tax professor Bill Resler (a REALLY funny guy who you'll not soon forget) and - behind the camera, the film's Writer/Director Ward Serrill. They, as well as one player who sets things in motion, Darnellia Russell, all have that HEART that's in the title!

The best way to see this film is to know nothing going in except it's about a high school girl's basketball team, filmed in "real time". Then let yourself get immersed in it as the story plays out. The less you know, the better. You will laugh and cry and have your spirits lifted in the film's 98-minute length.

But don't stop there. The DVD has HOURS of extras, and that doesn't count the full feature commetary (which I did not listen to). Many of the deleted scenes will add more background and you should watch them. Next watch the 29 minute "On the Road with Heart" short to get some real insight and hear a VERY VERY funny story as told by Coach Resler and having nothing to do with Basketball. Finally you MUST watch the 30 minute "Making off short", which tells it's own story of heart and self-esteem when you learned the story behind Write /Director Serrill's journey to make this film.

This is a great sports film but also a film that every teenage girl should see. It's rated PG-13 but I don't remember even hearing what is called "Brief Strong Language".

The film only played some small festivals and hopefully will reach a wider audience on DVD. Come for the feature and stay for the bonus features. You won't be sorry (or bored either!).


Steve Ramm "Anything Phonographic"

As the wife of a high school girls coach, I found this movie to be a nice change from the usual sports movies. One, it is a documentary not a bunch of made up basketball moves and scenes that the writer/director came up with. Two, it is actually a movie that shows females in the starring role instead of the supportive girlfriend, mother, wife etc.
If you are a parent of a player of any sport or the coach of any sport there will be times you will laugh out loud at the wisdom of coach Resler. "You tell them to do X, they say they will do X and they go out and do Y".
Great movie can't wait to buy the DVD

Bill Resler, a Seattle college tax professor with three school-age daughters, loved basketball, so when he heard that Roosevelt High School was looking for a girl's coach, he applied for the job. Shambling and bearded, Resler is far from the expected image of a basketball coach, and his techniques are even more unorthodox ... but they work and turn Roosevelt into a powerhouse, with highly motivated players chanting "Draw Blood!" before games and playing a "five guard offense". Resler's biggest challenge comes when a new freshman, Darnellia Russell, shows great promise as a player (genuine pro material) yet struggles against against a variety of insecurities and real-world difficulties. The film concludes with the team in a battle for the state championship, and Darnellia in a court battle to regain lost eligibility.

Now, I'm not a big fan of sports flicks, nor of high school basketball (boys or girls), but hey, it was a free preview ... and I found myself thoroughly enjoying the film. (If you are a member of one of the target groups, you may very well give this one a 5* rating.) Definitely a documentary, and without slick Hollywood production of the game scenes in particular, it was nonetheless engrossing, full of humor and suspense, less for whether a game would be won or lost than for what would happen in the players' lives. The diverse audience I was with, from teen girls to families to older adults, seemed to all enjoy it as well.

The Heart of the Game is a surprising delight. Several qualities make the coach "unorthodox." He gives total support and trust to the young women on team to make their own decisions, and he cultivates a team mentality instead of a "star player" mentality. While the game is about playing and winning, the real story is the respect, friendship and love that is held across gender, age and racial boundaries.

I have to say, I haven't seen such a compelling and engrossing documentary film centered on basketball and adolescence since 1994's wonderful "Hoop Dreams." Darnellia Walker, the protagonist, and her coach, Bill Resler, build a wonderful and empowering relationship on and off the court. Darnellia came from a hard background in the inner city of Seattle's Central District (one of the poorer parts of town), the daughter of a teenage mother and incarcerated father. Darnellia turned to basketball as an outlet for her energy, and developed her skills on the court to the extent that she was playing against (and beating) her male contemporaries on the courts during lunchtime at Seattle's Meany Middle School. She eventually moved on to Seattle's Roosevelt High School, to play varsity ball during her freshman year.

This film examines the triumph of the human spirit, how sports transcend class and racial background, as well as the unstoppable power of the human spirit and self determination. You will laugh, you will cry and you will leave the movie theater cheering.

This is a great movie, you laugh, you cry, you cringe and shake your head but most of all the last scene the entire theater was on the edge of their seat SCREAMING and standing up like we were in a sports bar watching the FINAL FOUR of college basketball. This should be required viewing for anyone involved in high school sports: parents. players coaches and fans.

I would recommend this movie to anyone. As a teacher and a sports fan, I found this movie deeply touching. It has the best characteristics of a "big game movie" and a "teacher movie" combined, and better yet, it's all true. The film doesn't just show us the heartwearming happy stuff, either. It also shows us the difficulties and vulnerabilities of teenage life, the pressures on young women, the consequences of unforgiving political views, etc. Hooray for the coach, the team, the filmmaker, and Ludacris for this wonderful product.

There may be a bit of a bias towards this movie because I played with and against many of the players in this documentary, but I truly felt the movie showed the competativeness, passion and tough times women's basketball holds. Much time was invested in the making of this movie and it really shows through viewing the end product.