Rise (2022)

 


This is one of the most inspiring movies of the century. Seriously, I love Disney but I didn’t know Disney still made movies like this. It’s the story of the Adetokunbo (Antetokoumnpo) family, from Charles and Veronica a.k.a. Vera (the parents), to Francis, Thanasis, Giannis, Kostas and Alex.

Originally from Nigeria, they moved to Greece for a better life, passing through Turkey. They couldn’t get resident status because they didn’t have passports and were illegal immigrants, even though all the children apart from Francis (left behind in Nigeria) were born in Greece. Charles worked odd jobs and the rest of the family sold stuff to tourists. And ran from the Europe police on their off time.

The father used to be a football player in Nigeria so he taught them to play ball but Thanasis and Giannis fell in love with Basketball in 2007 and there was no looking back.



They trained hard to have a chance to be drafted for teams but most teams wouldn’t touch them with a 10-foot-long pole once they learnt they were illegal.

At one major game with scouts watching, T. got injured, G. got a chance to play and got Haris with a single ‘r’ as his agent.

Zaragoza wanted to sign him and he got into the NBA Draft. He was 15th pick, drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks and the suspense was killing. I watched this around midnight and once I saw his name in the subtitle, I didn’t wait for the announcement before screaming. I’m going to be lectured at devotion tomorrow, guys.(Edit - I wasn't).  I couldn’t even wait for morning before typing. It was spectacular and a totally recommended watch.

It really chronicles how Africans and generally illegal immigrants in Europe live. I have never watched a movie like it, their stories don’t usually get told. I’ll stop here so as not to spoil the movie too much. Adios, my chicken babies. 

9.5 out of 10.

P.S. Also, I now want to be a basketballer, play in the WNBA. Future career #1k+.

P.P.S. This is my first blog ever, of many, hopefully. How do you like the font and all that? Comment below on stuff like this, other movies/series you would like me to review and any advice you have. 

P.P.P.S. The movie is safe to watch for all ages. No hidden weird stuff. Truly lovely. 

Bye. For real this time. Unless I have something to add. 

P.P.P.P.S. I just learnt how to add pictures to blog posts. I had to unpublish this baby to add pics. 

P.P.P.P.P.S. T for Athanasios, Thanasis, Thano, Thanos. Your pick. 

Comments

  1. DolofinJune 27, 2022 at 4:40 PM

    Look forward to watching the movie....where can I watch it please

    ReplyDelete
  2. FolaBirdJune 27, 2022 at 5:24 PM

    This is an amazing summary. Still looking for a movie you would recommend

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

So, what do you think?

Popular posts from this blog

LOOT EP. 1

Image
  Welcome to my new happy place! I love this series so much – thus far. I started by downloading one episode to test it out, then downloaded the remaining once I was done with the first. It’s a little less than 30 minutes per episode and while there’s 10 episodes in the season, only 6 (now 8) are out for now. All episodes are standalone though. Story starts with Molly’s 45 th birthday. She’s married to a billionaire and they started out poor together. She got a boat- think Titanic size - for her birthday but at the party later, discovers her husband is cheating on her with his secretary (who was 1 year old when they graduated college). She gets a very painful divorce and 87 billion dollars. Apparently, she didn’t do anything but live rich once they became rich because she doesn’t know she has a charity organization. She gets called in by the very scary but pretty lady who heads the charity because her post traumatic divorce lifestyle is disturbing their reputation and decide...
Read more

LOOT EP. 3

Image
  Molly’s husband does an interview (remember Meghan and Harry with Oprah- that kind) with his new wife and you know all these people who smile and insult you with very kind words, he’s that kind of person. She gets angry and decides to do one, sorry, ten too.   She preps for the interviews and all but on the interview day, gets scared and cancels. She decides to do a YouTube interview instead, the Hot Table Talk. You eat peppery food and talk. There are 10 levels. You can cool down with beer or milk. From the first bite, our aunty started drinking. You know that sweating and dripping nose, she was experiencing everything. She couldn’t sit. She was just gulping beer, Mixing it with milk. It was bad. Then she started getting angry- after she was drunk. She told them she could buy the studio and burn it down – as she was hopping around. She also told them she could kill them and nothing would happen. It was quite the interview.  She got 8 million views, with a lot of co...
Read more

LOOT EP. 2

Image
  Molly decides to get involved in the day-to-day work at the charity and first day, she’s almost fainting at 10:04. They only get 5 minutes to talk about their weekend and there’s a lot of work to do. I know she sounds spoilt but after they got rich, she became a stay at home, go to lunch, the spa and cocktails kind of wife, you get. The movie gives an inkling into the lives of rich wives who are not WAGs, what do they do? Her friends who are currently in Miami call her but she can’t go meet them because she doesn’t want to seem unserious so she takes everyone at the office to Miami for a “bonding trip”. They were already a bit peeved about being kidnapped, then there’s a thunderstorm and they have to land in Oklahoma where they get stuck for hours.    They head back to the office but Molly goes to Miami, which she hates because her friends are fake people and it was not worth it. She apologizes after getting back to work and just invites the work people to the res...
Read more