RANK

Just because you're tough enough to breed or ride champion bullriding bulls, doesn't mean you feel comforable talking about their genitals.

I became a fan of the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) on a rainy Sunday a few years ago when I happened to catch it on TV while parked on the couch for an afternoon. My remote control got lazy as I first watched it a bit ironically, then slowly became transfixed at the primal simplicity of the sport. A man has to stay on the back of the bucking bull for 8 seconds, and the total points for the ride are 50% rider, and 50% bull. If the rider gets bucked off before 8 seconds, no score. Sounds simple enough, but in a sport where the beast is as much an admired athlete as the man, anything could happen, including bone-crunching accidents and injuries, and amazing moments of athletic grace and sheer power. It was so... RAW.

Shortly thereafter, I found that a friend of mine also secretly watched the PBR on TV. We hesitantly outed our new obsession to our friends, and since then, they've chosen to avert their eyes as we hop on a plane every October to go to Vegas for the PBR Finals. The 2004 Finals are depicted in the documentary Rank, and if you freeze the frame at one point and squint, you can see the two of us in the nosebleed section. OK, not really. But for our screening of Rank, we happily poured some whiskey-and-Cokes and propped our feet on the coffee table for some quiet reverence of the crazy sport that is bull riding.

Speaking of reverence, Rank treats its topic with a sort of quiet awe as it follows the seven days of the Finals in Las Vegas, specifically three top contenders for the title: Two-time champion Adriano Moraes of Brazil, who at 34 is the old man of the group; yearly contender and third generation rider, 25-year-old Justin McBride; and fast-rising 21-year-old Mike Lee, a devout Christian fighting his own demons in a world of boozy modern cowboys.

Behind the scenes interviews show the men in their everyday lives. Particularly for Lee and McBride, they suddenly seem much younger when they don't have the manly cowboy hat and gear to hide behind. Most moving is an interview with McBride's grandmother, who good-naturedly let's the camera in her home while she has curlers in her hair. She first crows about her grandson's talent, but then slowly breaks as she tells about how Justin's own grandfather was killed bullriding, and how sometimes she has to turn the TV off for worry of the young men's lives.

Rank also profiles Dillon and HD Page, a father-son duo who run D&H Cattle Company, breeding champion bucking bulls like Mudslinger. They are quiet and very shy men, but Dillon provides the funniest moment as he gets flustered saying the word "genitals" while referring to the location of the riding rope around the belly of the bull. They, too, hope for a gold buckle at the end of the season, as the PBR also hands out a reward for PBR Stock Contractor of the Year.

There is much emphasis on the danger of the sport. For every successful and graceful ride and dismount, there are a handful more where things don't go so well. Moraes rides in the finals with an inflamed bicep on his riding arm, Mike Lee has a zipper-like scar along the whole side of his head, McBride hobbles through the week with a broken leg, and most graphically, bullfighter Rob Smets (they scrapped the job description "rodeo clown" a while back) shows off his left thigh, which is solid purple, swollen and lumpy from being tossed about. Holy crap. But when the prize for the top points at the end of the week is one million dollars, well, I suppose that is incentive to grit your teeth and climb back on the bull.

Bullriding fans will love Rank. If it bears criticism, it would be that these men are portrayed as saints headed to their doom (the soundtrack, a sort of mournful organ, lends to that somber tone). When I saw one less-successful cowboy two-fisting Bud Lights backstage, I found myself wishing that Rank also included the story of one of the guys that struggles just to be a part of the big show. But I suppose that is another movie. In the meantime, it IS another book: If you want to know more of the nitty gritty dirt behind the PBR, I highly recommend checking out the book Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders: A Year Inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour by Josh Peter, a warts and all look at the same 2004 PBR season. It makes an excellent companion piece to this documentary, offering a fuller picture of the sport.