Dreaming of achieving his dream of winning the tournament, Joe Logan, a young smart and ambitious high school guy, who leads the team of the Native Americans lacrosse, who train hard and prepare for their next tournament, the thing that challenges them.
"Crooked Arrows" gets points for its glimpses of Native American culture and history - the film's backers include the Onondaga Nation - but too many of these scenes are disappointingly static.
It's a warm-hearted little movie. It may have a ton of Native American cinematic clichés-dream sequences with staccato wooden flutes, soaring eagles, and so on-but it works.
In another era, "Crooked Arrows" might have been an after-school special, perfect to have on the TV while cleaning the house; miss a scene while you're dusting under the couch, and you'll still know exactly what's happening later.
"Crooked Arrows" might involve two lesser-seen screen subjects - Native Americans and lacrosse - but it still can't break free of the usual underdog sports picture tropes.
It has charm and a refreshing cultural perspective, but the predictability is often too much to bear, tanking the potential for a proper big screen exploration of lacrosse.
This attempt at a drama is pretty routine, but it demonstrates why some clichés became clichés: because they work. [It's] basically The Bad News Bears without all of the humor, though the tone is still fairly light.
