Rise
★ ★★
I'm a huge NBA fan and as a fan, it's hard not to love Giannis Antetokounmpo's talent, passion and story. Some of the best sports movies are about underdogs and Rise perfectly fits into that category. Even though Giannis is the main subject, this tale is about his whole family and is more about how this family of seven fought to survive and avoid deportation. I was pretty familiar with the Antetokounmpo story, but there were lots of tidbits of information I was unfamiliar with. Giannis's escalation to a first-round draft pick is pretty remarkable and especially knowing how the system normally works, it truly is a miracle that he was able to get his family into the United States.
Rise is a little different than most Disney sports movies because, for the most part, it's pretty much a straightforward drama. Usually, there are moments of comedy sprinkled about or some eccentric characters, but not this one. The film is almost two hours, and for a family film without the previously mentioned elements, it was a little tough for my girls to stick with it. I felt like it could have been a tighter story and it would have been just as effective, but it had enough of an impact that when it came to us buying new basketball shoes for my daughter the following week, she wanted Giannis's shoe.
Rise doesn't quite make it to the pantheon of sports movies, but I liked how it showed our girls that not everyone in this world has it easy and that there's no easy path to making it in professional sports. As an NBA fan, I'm hoping that maybe they will actually watch a Bucks game with me because they now know the backstory of one of the best players in the league.
