Murderball

Wheelchair rugby is an uncompromisingly tough game, with players to match.

Herald rating: * * * *

The best documentary in a year full of great ones is a full-frontal portrait of a bunch of sports jocks. It's violent, profane, provocative - and utterly mesmerising.

The jocks are all members of the United States Paralympic team in wheelchair rugby, a sport that makes normal rugby look like croquet.

Bracingly unsentimental, the film does nothing to romanticise its subjects, who are foul-mouthed, bitter, angry and aggressive young men. As one says, a crippling accident doesn't turn an asshole into an angel. But co-directors Rubin and Shapiro thoroughly investigate the men's past and present lives to deliver candid and intimate insights.

The film's main story concerns the rivalry between the sport's top two countries, Canada and the US, which is given added spice when former American star Joe Soares, a man with a serious grudge, is made Canadian coach.

The Canadians have an early upset win at the world championships in Sweden, and the rest of the movie follows the preparations for their clash at the Athens Paralympics in 2004. Soares' prickly and problematic relationship with his son, which would have made an intriguing film in its own right, bubbles along as a subplot.

Meanwhile, the stories of individual players - notably leading player Mark Zupan - make for a fascinating backdrop to the sports drama, and an insight into paraplegic sex.

Murderball is not just a sports documentary - although, thanks to some innovative photography, including wheelchair-mounted cameras, it's a pretty knuckle-whitening example of that genre and not for the squeamish.

It is about human adversity and the aspiration to overcome it. It is also, like all the best documentary films, a rattling good yarn. And it has a cracker payoff line for local audiences. Can't say better than that.

DIRECTORS: Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro
RUNNING TIME: 84 minutes
RATING: M, offensive language, sexual themes
SCREENING: Rialto