In 1957, the San Felipe Mustangs made history when the team of young Mexican American golfers not only played at a white golf club but went on to become the Texas high school state champions; a far cry from the makeshift greens they cleared in an overgrown field.  Led by their two coaches, JB Peña (Jay Hernandez) and Frank Mitchell (Dennis Quaid), the team faces plenty of obstacles, both on and off the green, but together they persevere and overcome impossible odds. 

Julio Quintana directs The Long Game from a script he co-wrote with Jennifer C. Stetson and Paco Farias, adapting Humberto G. Garcia’s 2010 novel The Mustang Miracle.  Premiering at the 2023 edition of the South by Southwest Film Festival where it won the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award, Mucho Mas Releasing held the title for a year before releasing the 112-minute period piece to cinemas.  Opening on just a little over 1,000 screens and downsizing from there across its 6-week run, the film will reach its widest audience at their homes on their Netflix screens. 

Hernandez leads the ensemble piece, but it is really the camaraderie shared by the caddies-turned-champions that endears us to the film.  We meet the boys – Joe Treviño (Julian Works), Gene Vasquez (Gregory Diaz IV), Felipe Romero (Miguel Angel Garcia), Mario Lomas (Christian Gallegos), and Lupe Felan (José Julián) – as they race through the streets and alleys to get to the San Felipe Country Club where they work.  One of the things that Quintana does so well with the film is he lets us meet each of the boys and get to know them somewhat personally.  Joe has undeniably the largest role of the team members with the most time spent outside of the greens following his arc, but each of the boys is given ample time to let their character’s individual personality shine through.  It makes us feel like we are a part of the team, too, and can get involved as they celebrate a win or mourn a setback, more so than if this was from a filmmaker merely setting up the shots and cueing up Hanan Townshend’s bright and evocative score to invoke the desired reaction. He uses that score as a tool to help push his cast’s perfromance, and because he cleary is working closely with the cast, the more manipulative notes do not seem so glaring. 

That is not to say that Quintana reinvents the period set, under dog genre here, but he does support some of the weaker aspects of these stories and executes expertly on our expectations which makes The Long Game a perfectly enjoyable film to watch.  With Alex Quintana behind the lens, the film is shot with the rose-colored glass lending a bit of nostalgia for the time which, while it makes for some pretty images, is an odd choice given the amount of prejudice and racism that the film confronts head on.  On a more playful side, though, he seems to find ways to really highlight the absolute insane amount of green which production designers Carlos Osorio and John Parker were able to accumulate.  More so than just the greens of the course, set decorators Angela Sofia Benavides and Kirsten Tait always find a green trinket or two to fill out the frame when indoors and no one is ever without something green, or at the very least an earthy brown to wear, thanks to Akayla Nandi and Daniela Rivano’s costumes.  It becomes almost a running joke just how much green is put into the film, but it also helps add to the charm of the film and confirms to us that this is a director who has cared for and thought deeply about his subject matter.  

When it comes to the sport, Quintana does what he can to instill excitement in the very metered and belabored game, especially for those whose connection to golf typically includes pirates, windmills, and ends with an ice cream cone.  He manages this because the sport is almost always ancillary to the personal moments.  We fall in love with the team and their affable nature so it is beyond just our modern understanding of the grossness of racisim, but that we are actually invested in these boys and care for them.  It may be Hernandez’s Peña who drives this communal dream, but it is the boys who we feel most connected to on a more empathetic level, and notably Peña dilutes his perofrmance enough so that his drive to push these boys forward is more because he believes in them, even if it started as somewhat of a feather for his cap. 

Much of this film ultimately flows through Joe, and the script asks a lot of Works who we follow through a fraught relationship with his father, Adelio (Jimmy Gonzales), who does not like the attention his son is drawing towards himself by playing golf and another fraught relationship with his girlfriend, Daniela (Paulina Chávez), who wants to move to the city for college and move on from her dusty, small town after graduation.  Joe’s plot lines add some narrative tension to the film, and while those who may be annoyed at how safely within the bounds of genre Quintana is operating in, Work’s charm is undeniable.  He exudes a bad boy, too cool, James Dean aura, but because we get to sit back and see everything that is going on, we almost know a little more so than his team that this bravado is a defense mechanism and there is a sweet, scared soul lashing out.  When we are on the greens, we are rooting for the team, but off of the greens, we are rooting for Joe.  He gets the most to do out of all the boys, so the script may feel a little unbalanced, but we still see the various strengths and weaknesses in the personalities of the team and how they build each other up, and that dynamic is absolutely magnetic.  Through their excitement at playing and their enjoyment of the game, it imbues the film with an inescapable feeling of pure joy and vigor. 

The Long Game is not reinventing the feel-good underdog story, a staple within the sports drama, but it executes the tropes of the format well enough that we become invested and our attention does not waver.  It is not a film that will stay in the memory long – Quintana plays it far too safe to be memorable – but while we are with the San Felipe Mustangs, we feel the warmth of friendship and family along with them.  It is a sweet little film that unfortunately never extends beyond its straight-to-DVD lack of urgency, but it delivers on its promise. With maybe a little too much golf for people who do not care and not enough golf for those who do, it may struggle to capture its audiences, but Hernadez extends that same confidence to his players that he does to us, and we can not help but to get whisked away by the dreadfully slow, stuffy, and formal action of the sport.  All snide comments aside, when the boys walk triumphantly and definitely into the too-pristine-to-breathe clubhouse, we can not help but grin at their achievements sweetened even more by the dissatisfaction of the stodgy old guard realizing they are no better than anyone else, and now there is a trophy in the hands of their former caddies to prove it.