1356 - Whip It

I wanted to see this film as soon as I was the trailer. The cast was right, solid subject matter, and great trailer with awesome energy. This film looked like a blast.

A friend of mine is a captain for one of the teams in the Toronto Roller Derby league, their team is Chicks Ahoy and we finally made it out to see a game last night (which rocked!), so it was only natural that my wife and I were extra pumped to finally watch this.

And it was... okay.

No one hates throwing out negative comments more than me but I just... I don't know. It's part sports movie, so within that you've got a bit of cliche that just has to happen to make the structure work. I'm fine with that. But I just found that the story was a bit of painting-by-numbers - stuff like everyone getting made at her just happened to all happen at the same time 'cause... well that's where it's supposed to happen in story structure. I guess what I'm saying is that I just felt like I 'felt' the beats of the story, rather than then disappearing into the film.

The cardinal sin of this film, for me, was that the film was unable to make the energy and excitement of the trailer. Not that it was trying to be a bait and switch, but it didn't get me excited the way that I'd hoped. The cast was all lovely, and there were some really nice bits to it. It's not a film I think I'll ever need to revisit. I'll tell you this - if you have a love-on for Barrymore or any of the fantastic people that are in this cast, it's probably worth checking out. But if you want my advice, use the above links and get your ass to a real roller derby. That shit is fun. The logo for my friend's team is below: