THE LONG GAME - Mark Reviews Movies

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 11, 2024

There are the official rules of any sport, and then, there are the unspoken rules surrounding the game—things like a player's attitude, little quirks within the culture of a particular team, and even superstitions for participants and fans. Society acts in a similar way, and the laws of Texas in the 1950s, the setting of The Long Game, allow for or enact racial and/or ethnic discrimination. Given the chance to break through those barriers, a team of high schoolers of Mexican heritage have to figure out the best way to navigate the unofficial rules of a supposedly "polite" society.

On the surface, this is an underdog sports story, about a school's makeshift golf team that overcomes multiple odds and obstacles just to participate in the state's league. Once they're actually able to play, the real challenges start—not only because they don't have the nice equipment and expensive clubs and years of professional training that most of their competitors possess, but also because nobody believes this particular team deserves to be playing in the first place.

Even the people who do believe these teenage boys deserve an equal shot to compete for the state title feel compelled to keep their mouths shut about the issue. That's one of those unspoken laws of this specific culture and society of this place and time. The head of a fancy country club, for example, might be personally happy to invite JB Peña (Jay Hernandez), a veteran of World War II and the new superintendent of a local public school, to become the club's first Mexican American member, but he won't do that. After all, what would the other members say and feel about such a decision?

In other words, JB has played by all the actual and implicit rules of society, and this is where it has gotten him—overlooked in his military service and now denied his big dream of being an official member of what he sees as the best golf course in the state, after taking this job just so he could be close to the club. He's not asking for much, except to be treated with the same level of respect as anyone else who's qualified to be a member, and this society won't even grant him that basic decency.

His story is eventually connected to and made distinct by a quintet of young golfers who are students at the high school. They work as caddies at the country club, and in their downtime, they play golf on a hole they've designed and crafted entirely on their own. While driving to his interview for membership at the club, JB notices the boys, after one of them targets his car and hits it with an impressive but dangerous drive, and after failing to catch them, he sees all the work they've put into being able to play a game they clearly love as much as he does.

This story—written by director Julio Quintana, Jennifer C. Stetson, and Paco Farias (based on the non-fiction book Mustang Miracle by Humberto G. Garcia)—isn't just about golf, a scrappy team overcoming the odds against them to find some degree of success, and discrimination. It's also about a deeper debate between JB, who becomes the kids' coach, and his younger generation of players: the overtly defiant Joe (Julian Works) and his four friends Gene (Gregory Diaz IV), Felipe (Miguel Angel Garcia), Mario (Christian Gallegos), and Lupe (Jose Julian).

JB is still certain that the best way to be accepted by a society that ignores and disrespects him, solely based on his ethnic heritage, is to follow every rule and even go above and beyond them. The teens, though, young, impatient, and, for very good reason, angry about how they're ignored and disrespected. They're certain the only thing to do under such circumstances is to rebel against the system that has made things so difficult or nearly impossible for them.

Both parties are correct in certain ways, and they're both wrong in others. That, at least, is the perspective of this film, which tells a compelling sports story, about a group of characters worth rooting for, and, at every turn, also allows this conversation about how to respond to bigotry, prejudice, and outright hatred unfold directly and in between the lines of the story.

It's basically a lengthy argument between assimilating into such a society and pushing back against it. The film doesn't arrive at an answer to the better method, of course, because this is a depressingly losing fight in 1950s Texas (and, in many ways, the same now). That the filmmakers find that pragmatism and cynicism while also telling an inspiring, hopeful story under the same terms is a notable accomplishment. That's mainly because of the film's embrace of its dueling perspectives on the situation, as well as the simplicity of the storytelling of the team's various victories combined with the complexity of how the main characters, in the bigger picture, are stuck in a no-win scenario.

Also, the performances are engaging and considered, especially from Hernadez and Works as equally sympathetic figures, constantly butting ideological heads. Dennis Quaid (as an old golf pro and JB's former commanding officer who becomes the assistant coach), Jaina Lee Ortiz (as JB's wife, who first seems like a supportive cliché but has some fight of her own), and Cheech Marin (as course's the groundskeeper, who wears a cage to become "invisible" and helps the kids out any way he can) round out the cast.

The basic premise of The Long Game may sound straightforward and familiar. It is, albeit effectively so, but the attention to the underlying conflict of ideas raises that story higher than we might anticipate.

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