Youngblood Review: Remake of Rob Lowe’s 1986 Hockey Film Powerfully Subverts the Sports Movie as an Anti-Racist Screed

Davis’s film keenly observes the subtle ways racism manifests, and the script—a collaboration between Kyle Rideout, Seneca Aaron, Josh Epstein, and the late Charles Officer—cleverly avoids explicitly calling it out. The story follows eighteen-year-old hockey hopeful Dean Youngblood (Ashton James), and while it uses familiar underdog tropes, the film smartly updates the original by highlighting and criticizing a culture of unfair treatment. The film’s creation within a context of exclusion gives it a deeper meaning beyond typical sports movie clichés.








