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New York Magazine

 
 

The Heart of the Game
     
  Release Date: 06/09/06 (Future Release)

Starring: Darnelia Russell, Bill Resler, Devon Crosby-Helms, Meghan Miller, Jade White

Director: Ward Serrill

Rating: (PG-13)
 
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Genre
  Documentary
   
  Running Time
  102 min
   
  Distributor
  Miramax Films
   
Official Website
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NEW YORK VIEW
Ward Serrill’s fast-paced film is every bit as exciting as an actual tournament ballgame. Miles more intimate than ESPN’s recent hit Through the Fire and much more surprising (if not so epic as the gold-standard Hoop Dreams), the film tells the story of how grey-haired white-guy Seattle tax professor Bill Resler turned around a girls’ high-school basketball team. The star, however, is Darnellia Russell, a hard-charging African American star whose pregnancy threatens to derail her run at a college scholarship.

CINEMASOURCE SYNOPSIS
When Seattle filmmaker Ward Serrill met Bill Resler, a college tax professor who moonlights as a girls' basketball coach, he didn't realize that he was about to embark on an incredible seven-year journey. Serrill, camera in hand, followed Resler -- who looks more like Santa Claus in Birkenstocks than a whistle-blasting high school coach -- into the Roosevelt High School gym and soon discovered a group of girls whose unbridled toughness, passion and energy he came to call "The Heart of the Game." Then, one day, onto the Roughriders' court (and into the film) walked Darnellia Russell -- a tough, inner-city girl whose off-court struggles would eventually threaten to crash the star athlete's plans to play college ball and be the first person in her family to get a college education. At the center of "The Heart of the Game" is Darnellia's unforgettable true story -- the loss of her eligibility and her legal battle to get back on court to play the game that means everything to her. With Coach Resler, her team and her family standing by her side, she takes on enormous personal obstacles as well as the ruling body of high school sports in Washington State.