High School Basketball Highlight Reel

The Heart of the Game (3/5 stars)

The Heart of the Game tells the story of the Roosevelt High School Rough Riders female basketball team, their coach (Bill Resler), and one of their star periods for a period of time (Darnellia Russell) over a period of several years.

The primary focus of the movie, Resler, previously having no coaching experience, becomes the head coach at the school and brings them to a level of dominance; the team makes an appearance at almost every state championship tournament over the course of several years, and eventually this all finally leads up to a game in the finals during the movie's conclusion. Another focus is on one of the stars, Russell, who is touted as being a fantastic player, who has a real shot at the NBA some day. However her chances are sidetracked as she becomes pregnant at the end of her junior year. She skips a year and then comes back to play her fourth year one year too late, and the state basketball association tries to deny her the chance, but it is taken to court and at the outset of the championship game there is still the chance that even if the team wins they could get their award taken away from them if she is eventually deemed inelligible. The point is that she had undue hardship due to her pregnancy and could not possibly play her fourth year on schedule, if she were a player on the men's team she would not have to deal with this kind of issue.

The movie switches between highlight footage, interviews with the players and the coach, and news footage. The best is the stuff which focuses on the coach himself; he is a pretty eccentric person, and if the movie were more about him it would be much more interesting. However much of the movie really feels like you are watching an NFL Films highlight reel of girl's high school basketball games, which drags the movie down and makes it less interesting. There is nothing much that is too profound here, and the intereresting parts of the movie (the personalities, Darniella's struggle) are overshadowed by the game footage.

It wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't a very good one either; just simply average. I would recommend watching it on cable, because just like any sports highlights documentary that is exactly what it is suited for.