If there is a rulebook for sports documentaries, then Herbert throws it out the window. Instead she achieves, on behalf of the audience, a connection with these kids that is rarely if ever achieved in this genre. By the time the credits role, and the mandatory "where are they now" screens pop up, you will find yourself much more interested in what happened to these young people than in their wrestling scores. That is, in a nutshell, the brilliance of this film.
Plot summary
Hoop Dreams goes to the mat in WRESTLE, an intimate coming-of-age documentary about four members of a high-school wrestling team at Huntsville's J.O. Johnson High School, a longstanding entry on Alabama's list of failing schools. Coached by teacher Chris Scribner, teammates Jailen, Jamario, Teague, and Jaquan each face challenges far beyond a shot at the State Championship: splintered family lives, drug use, teenage pregnancy, mental health struggles, and run-ins with the law threaten to derail their success on the mat and lock any doors that could otherwise open. Tough-love coach Scribner isn't off the hook, either; he must come to terms with his own past conflicts while unwittingly wading into the complexities of race, class and privilege in the South. Director Suzannah Herbert and Co-Director Lauren Belfer captured over 650 hours of footage during the course of the team's final season to create this closely observed, deeply affecting depiction of growing up disadvantaged in America today.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Is there a rulebook?
Off the Mat
Four young men and their dedicated wrestling coach make a run at state in this masterfully shot and edited documentary film. It will earn apt comparisons to Hoop Dreams but has as much in common with television's Friday Night Lights. These boys tenaciously meet all comers, but their greatest opponents are found off the mat. This is a film of poetry, beauty, ugliness and fury. You do not have to like wrestling to love this movie, but if you love wrestling it will be your favorite movie of the year. It is mine.