When you think about sports, you probably think of things like football, basketball, and hockey–but I’m not sure that many people would say roller derby. Minnesota Mean is a documentary that follows a women’s roller derby team throughout the course of an entire season. With testimonials from the individuals on the team and a series of high-octane visuals, this film aims to express to the world that this sport matters, and these women are badass.
It’s absolutely essential that Minnesota Mean invites viewers into the film and provides them multiple reasons why this sport is worth talking about. It’s a hard sell for sure, but it’s a task that Director Dawn Mikkelson was willing to take on–and she needs to ensure that she’s effective in her ventures.
Let’s be honest, the sport itself isn’t something that the majority of sports fans seek out, but men who are interested in watching and learning about anything sports related will find a number of things that appeal to them here. This may be a niche group of potential viewers, but the group exists nonetheless. Minnesota Mean showcases the sport from a series of angles, and it doesn’t hurt that there are a number of attractive women that play a prominent role in the film as well. I don’t think that Mikkelson went out of her way to find attractive women, but the fact of the matter is that there are a handful of them that exist throughout the film–and that will be appealing to a specific group of people.
Beyond this, Minnesota Mean doesn’t do much to attract viewers, to keep them engaged for its more than one-hour runtime. I don’t think that the film does a great job of reeling in viewers, of giving them a reason to want to stick around for more than an hour, or even to care about the individuals showcased throughout the course of Minnesota Mean. The individuals present themselves as if roller derby is their entire life, making them almost one-dimensional–at least until it’s too late. With this they just become faces with fake names–not real people; they are simply one-dimensional and uninteresting. That’s not to say that the people are actually one-dimensional, or that they really do lack a personality, but that’s the way in which they are presented to viewers. I found myself bored, struggling to connect with these individuals–and as the film progressed and later attempted to humanize them, it was too late.
Furthermore, for those of us that don’t follow roller derby on a regular basis, it can be somewhat of a challenging sport to understand. I’m not sure that Minnesota Mean does an effective job of explaining the sport–not at least in a way that made enough sense to me. As I watched I had to attempt to figure things out on my own. I think I did alright in this department, but I’m not entirely sure.
Minnesota Mean should have been shorter, and it should have attempted to better connect the individuals from the team with viewers. There was such a massive disconnect in this department, and it made the majority of the film difficult for me to appreciate as a result. The film seems to drag on and on, and its goal of attempting to express why roller derby is important and showcasing this particular season ultimately falls on deaf ears. Minnesota Mean likely had a lot of potential to reach a bigger-than-expected audience, but it failed to deliver.
Directed by Dawn Mikkelson.
⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
Comments