TV & Moviesexplainer
'The Mosquito Bowl' turns a Guadalcanal football game into a war film where the game is a small part
Peter Berg's Netflix adaptation of Buzz Bissinger's book follows four college football stars from basic training to Okinawa, and the game that names it fills little of the screen time.
A title that promises more football than the film delivers
The football game that gives The Mosquito Bowl its name occupies only a small portion of the movie [1]. If you are heading to the cinema expecting a sports picture, that is worth knowing before you buy a ticket.
The film is a second world war drama about a football game before the battle of Okinawa [2]. Its name refers to a 1944 Christmas Eve pickup football game at Guadalcanal [2].
What the film follows
The story centres on four American college football stars who traded a pigskin for an M1 Garand [1]. They gave up professional glory for the US Marines and the Pacific theater after the attack on Pearl Harbor [2]. They later faced off on the 'gridiron' of Guadalcanal before being shipped to Okinawa [1].
The Marines depicted belong to the 4th and 29th regiments of the 6th Marine Division [1]. Their path runs from basic training to Tarawa, to camp at Guadalcanal, and to the deadly assault at Okinawa [2]. The film also depicts the 5,000 Marines landing on Tarawa, who faced elite troops of the Imperial Navy's Special Naval Landing Force [1].
The cast and the score
Nicholas Galitzine plays John 'Mac' McLaughry [2]. Ray Nicholson plays Anthony 'Touchdown Tony' Butkovich [2], and Tom Francis plays Dave Schreiner [1].
The football scenes are scored by Explosions in the Sky, the band that also scored Friday Night Lights [2].
How the book became a Netflix film
Peter Berg and Mark L Smith adapted the film for Netflix from a nonfiction book by Buzz Bissinger [2]. That book is Bissinger's 2022 The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II [1].
Berg and Bissinger are cousins who collaborated on the book Friday Night Lights over two decades ago [1]. Both of their fathers were Marines, and Bissinger's father served in the Pacific, including Okinawa [1].
How it treats war
Berg said the film is a war movie that happens to have football players in the middle of the war [1]. Bissinger said the film should not sanitize war, and that people have to know what war is [1].
In one scene, fellow Marines are shown hawking 'Jap teeth', and the main characters are violently put off by this [2]. The film ends with a title card acknowledging the Japanese civilians slain at Okinawa and the 75m global deaths from the entire conflict [2].
Where and when to watch
The film is in North American cinemas on 30 October, in UK cinemas on 13 November, and on Netflix from 25 November [2]. If you want the big screen, those are the dates to check for your region [2].
Go in expecting the war the film depicts, from Tarawa to Okinawa, with the football game as a small part of it [2][1].
Sources
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