The Long Game

Texas, 1955. Five Mexican American youths work as caddies at a golf club in Del Rio. They are not allowed to play there; the discrimination is written down as a rule. JB Peña, the new school superintendent, tries to join the club and is refused, then forms a team with these boys. They have no course to practise on. They cut a single hole in a field and work there. Two years later they enter the state championship. Julio Quintana directs. Jay Hernandez, Dennis Quaid and Cheech Marin take the leads. The narrative rests on a real event: the team won the Texas state high school championship in 1957. The matter it treats is not the game but permission to enter the game; the narrative shows discrimination not as background but as a direct obstacle. There is little technical detail in the golf scenes; the film is not describing a sport, it is describing where these boys stand at the club. The character played by Dennis Quaid is the expected mentor shape and the narrative does not step outside it. It was shown in cinemas in America in 2024. Who it is for: viewers who like sports drama based on a real event. Who it is not for: the shape is familiar, the emotional register predictable, and some of the characters are underwritten.