We Just Want to Play (Short)
It’s perhaps fitting that we do not see the Ruckland University Rugby team play any actual rugby until the end credits in “We Just Want to Play.” After all, the film hinges not on their on-field performance, which is supposedly very good, but on their off-field exploits, which include typical college shenanigans…and maybe filming porn, as one of the heads of the team (Ray, played by Trevor Williams) is doing when we first see him in co-captain Glen’s (Lars Lee) room. They are fighting for the team’s life when the athletic director of the school (Timothy J. Cox) hits them with probable disbandment. But Ray and Glen, whose girlfriend Whitney (Alexandra Bartley) breaks up with him the same week, will not be going quietly into that good night, and are determined to do whatever it takes for them to keep the team intact…even a tug-o-war competition. Wait, what? Frank De Rosa’s screenplay hits a lot of college comedy bases involving sex, drugs, stuck-up administrators and fuck up students in this 16 minute short, and director James Cappadoro does his finest “Animal House” or “Accepted” impression behind the camera. The problem with such well-worn territory is that it’s hard to approach it from a new angle. I suppose one could say that the rugby team may actually deserve being expelled, or that the athletic director is actually worse than they are, is new, but while enjoyable, “We Just Want to Play” doesn’t have a lot to really hang its hat on besides being silly and proud of it. Sometimes, that’s good enough. Here, I kind of just shrug and say, “eh.”
