I have to admit a certain bias towards this film and I should say that it affected my enjoyment of it; I hurt my back pretty badly a few years ago (nothing like the leg injury in this film) but yet the treatment available is limited to me and years later it continues to be something that will suddenly flare up and see me unable to walk without a lot of pain and restriction in movement (even with pain killers). So, it is difficult for me to perhaps feel too uplifted by someone who has managed to "overcome" an injury with the full resources of his sports team behind him.
This is not to take anything away from Chad Jones because truly it would have been easy for him to sink into depression at the thought of what he almost had, but this film is not quite as inspiring as it thinks it is. We see Jones with a team of dedicated physiotherapists, access to pools, anti-gravity treadmills and many other treatment and rehab piece of equipment that the vast majority of people would simply never be able to afford. Maybe I am overly sensitive to the benefit of this but the film instead chooses to play up Jones' spirit, which again is commendable but is not the whole story and it should at least have been recognized that he was not fighting without a great deal of support behind his "spirit".
It is still interesting though (enough to see me following him up online to see he is recently drafted into the MLB) and it is professionally (and graphically) presented. Jones himself is very engaging on camera even if he never really lets us below the surface and into his emotions. His fighting spirit and determination is the focus of the short film and it is shown well – I just use that the film had delved more deeper into his struggle to at least show how much HE had to deal with, as opposed to what it showed – which was what he had to overcome (with a team of experts and access to a huge range of rehab and treatment facilities which few others would have access to outside of his situation).
