Sarah Podemski | Through the Shattered Lens

I recently had the opportunity to participate in an interview with the Native American author Sherman Alexie. We were discussing some of our favorite films, and he threw out MEKKO (2015) as a movie he really liked. I was surprised because it’s a movie I had never heard of, and I consider myself in the know when it comes to all things movie related. I checked and it’s streaming on Tubi, so I decided I would check it out for myself.

The story follows Mekko (Rod Rondeaux), a Native American who heads to Tulsa after serving nineteen years in prison for killing his cousin in an alcohol-fueled fight. When what’s left of his family turns their backs on him, Mekko finds himself living on the city’s streets with many other Indians. While he finds a few friends, he also comes across the predatory and murderous Bill (Zahn McClarnon). When Bill turns his focus Mekko’s way, he decides to take things into his own hands.

I’ll just say right off the bat that I think that the best thing about the film is the incredible performance by Rod Rondeaux in the title role. He doesn’t have a lot of credits to his name, but he’s absolutely perfect here. It doesn’t even feel like he’s acting. His face seems to carry a lifetime of regret, but also a hope that his hard-earned wisdom will eventually mean something positive for him and the people he cares about. Rondeaux plays Mekko with a dignity that feels completely out of place with the world he now finds himself in. It’s a masterful performance that would net him the Best Actor award at the American Indian Movie Award ceremony for 2015.

MEKKO was written and directed by Sterlin Harjo, who also created the series RESERVATION DOGS for FX that ran from 2021-2023. A citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Harjo presents us with a grungy, realistic film that’s also full of old tribal stories and myths. One of the main reasons that Mekko decides that he must take care of the murderer Bill himself is due to his grandma’s stories about evil spirits and witches that sometime insert themselves into people’s lives. Harjo’s film treats these beliefs at face value, and based on what we’ve seen, it’s hard to argue with him.

I’ve been to Tulsa on a few occasions to watch the PGA Championship at the Southern Hills Golf Course. I’ve never seen the Tulsa that’s presented here. This Tulsa is dirty and extremely dangerous. Harjo used real locations and a lot of regular people from the local Native community, and that certainly adds to the authenticity of the story. As Mekko visits the homeless camps and soup kitchens, it just feels real. When Mekko takes on Bill (a truly frightening performance by Zahn McClarnon), it’s both a physical and spiritual reckoning that seems completely necessary.

MEKKO is definitely a slow burner of a film that’s rough around the edges, but it’s also an undeniably powerful film. It feels honest in a way that most movies don’t. It’s about a wounded, decent person who’s trying to live a better life, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it for days.

After high school basketball coach Schmidt (Andrew Dice Clay) has a heart attack, one of his former players, Bilal Irving (Jordan Johnson-Hines), returns to Ontario to replace him. Bilal, a pro player who has developed a reputation for being a diva, thinks that it will mean some good publicity for him. Instead, he discovers that coaching a group of scrappy underdogs to the province championship is far more satisfying than being a member of the Timberwolves.

There’s not a sports cliche that goes unused in Warrior Strong. At first, no one gives the team a chance but then the team shows what they can do when they are properly motivated. Bilal stop being selfish but then gets a chance to return to the NBA right before the championship game. The team’s best player quits in disgust and the rest of the players have to prove themselves. Since this is a Canadian film, there’s a lot of political and cultural content stuffed into the plot. A local indigenous woman give the team permission to use the Warriors name. One the team’s stars, Bettina (Macaulee Cassaday), worries about fitting in as a nonbinary person. Some of it feels awkwardly forced into the story. Some of it works. I’ve never been a believer in the idea that “going work” automatically makes a film good or bad. But there are times that the movie feels as if it was written by someone who was given a checklist of issues to include.

Most people who watch this film will probably be watching for Andrew Dice Clay, cast here as a plainspoken coach. Clay is believable in the role, even if he doesn’t really do that much. He plays a decent person who doesn’t curse or recite dirty limericks. Watching films like this, you have to wonder what his career would be like now if he had never been the Diceman.