First Hit: This was very entertaining and brought back fond roller derby memories.
I use to like watching roller derby on television. There were teams called the Bay Bombers from San Francisco and from LA there were the T-Birds. And then there was the voice of roller derby in Southern California. His name was Dick Lane (voice of the LA T-Birds) and he would yell out with a particular inflection “Whoa, Nellie” when a skater would do something wild or get whipped out from the pack.
Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar a lost young girl who is forced into beauty pageants by her once beauty pageant maven mother (Marcia Gay Harden).
Bliss works at a local diner, wears combat boots on her own time, and with her best friend Pash, they keep looking for ways to leave their small hometown outside of Austin Texas. Seeing a flyer to a roller derby contest in Austin, Bliss and Pash drive over and watch the contest.
Bliss falls in love with the idea of roller derby and with a singer in a band who happens to be watching the same contest. Bliss goes home and decides to drag out her old Barbie skates and, with practice, ends up making the Hurl Scouts, a team that always loses.
There she meets Smashley Simpson (played by Drew Barrymore), Rosa Sparks (played by Eve), and Maggie Mayhem (played by Kristen Wiig). All the teams play in the same building every Friday night and the Hurl Scouts are absolutely the worst and they are proud of it.
However with Bliss’s speed, by listening to their coach, and executing his plays for the first time they start winning games. They actually win enough to challenge the perennial champions headed by Iron Maven (played by Juliette Lewis) in the playoff match which is on the same night as the biggest beauty contest in Bliss’s home town.
Faced with a major decision, a missing boyfriend, and an alienated family life, Bliss must make some hard choices.
Ellen Page is believable, strong and wonderful to watch as Bliss (AKA Baby Ruthless). Drew Barrymore as Smashley Simpson was good but better was her direction of this film as she got the feel and touch just about perfect. There was the sporting aspect and kept it fun as well. The updating of roller derby as it might be today was probably as good as one could get. I was overjoyed to see Juliette Lewis back on the screen. She’s been mostly involved in her band but it is always great to remember she has acting chops. Jimmy Fallon is the voice of the roller derby as "Hot Tub" Johnny Rocket and although he wasn't Dick Lane, he brought an effective style to the genre.
Overall: This was a very enjoyable film and had the grit of a sports film and the touching sense of a coming of age film.