New Zealand Rehabilitation Association, Inc.

Directed by Henry Rubin and Dana Shapiro, Murderball is a documentary about the players in two wheelchair rugby teams - one from the Canada; the other from the USA.  The rivalry between these teams is heated, and the action on (and off) the field is fierce.  As a result, reviewers of this movie have frequently focused on the impressively physical nature of the sport, with reference to ‘carnage’, ‘Mad Max-inspired wheelchairs’, and ‘dog fights’ to reflect the intensity of the competition.  But this movie is also about the lives of these players, showing them as husbands and fathers, boyfriends and best mates, role models and troublemakers.  One of the great things about this movie in comparison to many stories involving people with disabilities is that the athletes in Murderball are portrayed as neither victims or ‘supercrips’.  Instead the characters are presented as ordinary human beings complete with their own idiosyncrasy and foibles.  They are not dependent on overcoming all adversity before they are considered to have ‘normal’ lives.

The movie culminates with the 2004 Athens games.  Team USA is desperate to win back the world title for quad rugby from their arch nemesis, Team Canada… the ‘twist’ of course being that the Wheelblacks took out gold at the 2004 paralymic games.  I have heard however that the US paralympic team is getting a bit of a boost at present as a result of the number of US veterans returning from the Middle East with disabilities, with one commentator suggesting "The unprecedented number of troops who are returning from Iraq with missing limbs has given the US Paralympic Team an unexpected recruitment boost and the chance to become “unbeatable” at the next Games in Beijing in 2008."… It’s almost like cheating, isn’t it?