Ashton James plays Dean Youngblood in the film.Supplied
Youngblood
Directed by Hubert Davis
Written by Charles Officer, Josh Epstein, Kyle Rideout and Seneca Aaron, based on the 1986 movie written by Peter Markle and John Whitman
Starring Ashton James, Shawn Doyle and Blair Underwood
Classification N/A; 104 minutes
Opens in theatres March 6
Given that Canada is obsessed with hockey, it is more than a little surprising that the country’s film industry has produced only a smattering of solid movies about our national sport: the two riotous Goon films, Kevan Funk’s underappreciated dark 2016 drama Hello Destroyer, the straight-ahead but still enjoyable Maurice Richard biopic The Rocket from 2005, and some (but certainly not all) of Quebec’s Les Boys franchise. Sorry, but Slap Shot doesn’t count, Heated Rivalry is a television series, and the 1986 Rob Lowe film Youngblood also is disqualified, even though the flick was set in Hamilton, Ont., and featured a young Keanu Reeves in his first feature-film role.
Olunike Adeliyi and Wagner Shell III in Youngblood.Supplied
In a bid to cinematically repatriate the sport, Canadian filmmaker Charles Officer, himself a former professional hockey player, set out a few years ago to remake Youngblood from a distinctly Canadian perspective. Tragically, Officer died in 2023 at the age of 48 from complications due to a rare autoimmune disease, before he was able to step behind the camera to realize his new vision of Youngblood. But to ensure Officer’s dream didn’t disappear, Canadian director Hubert Davis (who made the 2022 doc Black Ice, focusing on the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes) stepped in.
The result is at once a heart-melting act of generosity from one filmmaker to another, a thoughtful attempt to re-root the culture of hockey through a contemporary racial lens and an ultimately rote reimagining of an underdog tale told approximately one hundred times before.
Henri Richer-Picard stars alongside Ashton James.Supplied
Hubert and his team of writers – with credit going to Officer as well as three others – manage to hit all the expected notes, at least. Very loosely taking on the spine of the original film’s story about a young, hot-headed rookie working his way up to the NHL, the film follows the conveniently named hero Dean Youngblood (Ashton James) as he struggles to shake off the aggressive training of his widower father (Blair Underwood). After earning a spot on the Hamilton Mustangs, Dean must not only battle his opponents on the ice but also the demons raging inside him, which are not exactly soothed by his tough couch (Shawn Doyle) and a tentative romance with Jessie (Alexandra McDonald), an up-and-coming athlete in her own right.
James, who recently led the deft and nimble tick-tock thriller Boxcutter, delivers the kind of full-throttle intensity the film, and the game, demands. All of which makes the wan drama surrounding James feel all the more woefully manufactured. Underwood, the most familiar face in the cast, does solid work as Dean’s overbearing father, but there are just not enough moments between the L.A. Law vet and James to set the familial dynamic truly ablaze.
This distinct absence of passion extends to Hubert’s on-ice sequences. Pedestrian in their staging and severely underlit, the game-time action lacks any kind of visual punch – a tough sell when you’re trying to appeal to, or to at least dissect, the country’s most blood-pumping pastime. For a game of fire and ice, this new Youngblood feels decidedly lukewarm.