PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 7/8/05)

Murderball asks you to put all your assumptions about quadriplegics aside and start over. From the opening shot of fierce murderball champ Mark Zupan getting ready for a match, it's clear that these players aren't your usual blue-parking-space crowd. With his facial hair and tattoos, Zupan looks the way a Hell's Angel might if he traded his Harley in for a killer wheelchair, and much like the rest of his teammates (a rowdy bunch, many of whom earned their injuries racing motorcycles or picking bar fights), he's the kind of daredevil athlete who isn't going to let a broken back stop him from his Evel Knievel antics.

Weepies like Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside may have set the stage for conversations about coping with neck-down paralysis, but only Murderball offers empowerment rather than mercy killing as its solution. Leave the Kleenex at home. Beginning with the 2002 Wheelchair Rugby World Championship, this outstanding documentary by Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro (whose Maxim story inspired the movie) tracks the world's two most competitive quad rugby teams all the way to the 2004 Paralympics in Athens. In one corner, there's the United States team, undefeated for the past decade. In the other, there's Canada, as coached by Joe Soares, who defected north after being cut from the U.S. team.

Considering Soares' "betrayal," the potential for on- and off-court drama is enormous. The filmmakers cover every angle, from arena action to human-interest backstory, navigating their multifaceted subject with remarkable discipline. These guys really know how to structure their story, anticipating exactly what the audience wants to see or hear next at every moment. When one player mentions that his chair helps him score with the ladies, who typically chat him up for 20 minutes before dropping the question of whether he can still perform sexually, that's exactly what audiences are asking themselves. Rubin and Shapiro are ready with the answer (and a priceless "Sexuality Reborn" video to match). Where other movies handle handicapped characters with kid gloves, Murderball favors the gauntlet, respecting its heroes with honesty and irreverence instead of "special" treatment. —Peter Debruge