The Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming, home to the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, is situated on beautiful, sweeping plains, the sort of place you'd expect to see in a big-budget Hollywood production — Daniel Junge's Chiefs does feature a swooping, gorgeous aerial shot or two but is as far from a Tinseltown epic as you can get (unless of course you're talking about Hoosiers). Originally broadcast on PBS as part of the "Independent Lens" series, Chiefs is a powerfully affecting look at how one community clings to its basketball team, drawing strength from these young athletes.

As the film opens, it's established that the Wyoming Indian High School Chiefs are a dominating force on the court — but it's been seven years since the team took home a state championship trophy. Viewers follow along as a handful of players — including Beaver C'Bearing, Gerry Redman, Tim Robinson and Al C'Bearing — experience the ups and downs of life as well as fierce competition. More than just a simple sports documentary, Chiefs takes a few pages from the Hoop Dreams playbook, exploring how life off the court affects performance on it (as well more or less pacing itself like Hoop Dreams and Junge even seems to affect the same tone as Steve James does when narrating). Life on "the rez" is far from easy: poverty, alcoholism, racism and suicide are but a few of the challenges facing young Native Americans.

Junge, who followed these players for two years, creates a moving portrait of the uphill battle these individuals face and how team sports help give these young men an outlet for their dreams, frustrations and aspirations — Chiefs doesn't quite deliver the emotional roundhouse that James's film does, but in its own way, Junge's 90-minute look at life on this central Wyoming reservation is compelling and quite poignant.

Chiefs is a look inside a way of life that many people might be surprised to learn exists — for those unfamiliar with the hard, unforgiving obstacles standing in the way of young Native Americans, this film may serve as an eye-opening wake-up call. The country as a whole seems to often forget about those living on reservations, as though their absence from the national spotlight renders them less important. Chiefs reminds you that no matter where we live or what our experiences, we are all human.

The Video:

Presented as originally broadcast, as part of PBS's "Independent Lens" series, Chiefs is presented in a less-than-stellar 1.33:1 fullscreen transfer. The film seems as though it were shot on video, which often renders scenes of fast motion a blurry mess. For the most part, the image is clean, but there are instances where pixellating and smearing are very evident.

Junge contributes a dry narration, which, aside from the interview subjects who appear in the film doesn't tax the Dolby stereo 2.0 soundtrack — tribal music sneaks in occasionally beneath all the talking, being rendered warmly and with some presence. Overall, this disc sounds much better than it looks.

Nary a scrap of supplemental material to be found — which is a shame, as this is a film that cries out for a follow-up featurette (information which, incidentally, can be found here).

It would be glib but Chiefs could be described as a Native American Hoop Dreams; such a comparison would do both films a disservice — Daniel Junge's Chiefs is a compelling, poignant look at the lives and games of a handful of Wyoming Native Americans. Those fans of sports and documentaries should seek this out. Recommended.