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"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.