Hoop-de-doo! Finally, a sport with real drama
Untold: Malice At The Palace, Netflix
Sport has for decades been the home of the bland cliche which is why I avoid it like the plague.
Post-match interviews, especially with footballers, are typically dreary, with a lot of picking oneself up or one game being played at a time. Even I know two games aren’t played at once.
Recently and somewhat refreshingly there has been an outbreak of honesty in sport; tennis ace Naomi Osaka seemed to lead the charge by saying she couldn’t play because of mental health worries.
And last year Netflix’s The Last Dance cast an unflinching eye at the Chicago Bulls’ basketball team of 1997 and, surprise, their talisman Michael Jordan came across like a big angry jerk. It was glorious.
Sport isn’t full of the dull automatons; they are in fact emotional people undergoing extraordinary stress.
Untold: Malice At The Palace requires no prior knowledge of basketball, just that you might find it interesting that a game between two NBA teams, the Pacers and Pistons descended into a shocking brawl.
The Netflix series uses interviews with the participants and explores why these moments of drama happened.
The startling footage is mixed with thoughtful interviews. As far as originality goes, this is a breath of fresh air.