Also known under the title "Throwing Bombs in Baghdad," Riccardo Romani's very untypical sports documentary follows the underdog (to say the least) Olympics boxing team from Iraq over a period of years, as they prepare for the 2016 Rio summer games. Meanwhile civil war and terrorism ravages their nation, and ISIS forces are only a handful of miles away from Baghdad. The film largely spares viewers any preamble to the dismal circumstances that brought Iraq to such ruin and America's dubious role in it (though one of the oldest members of the team remembers serving in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard). The boxers, proud of their heritage and eager to represent a country they call "beautiful" but seemingly outcast by the rest of the world, disdain the Islamic State and suicide bombers and their twisted exploitation of Muslim faith; one young man, Saadi, is in active military fighting ISIS. As war rages, training and qualifying for the Olympics, even in borrowed gyms with inferior equipment, gets the athletes out of Iraq and to the safer havens of Thailand, Italy and China (one has a girlfriend back home who doesn't trust him with the foreign girls). The viewer feels the camaraderie and support among the Iraqis and their families, who complain that Olympics judges hold political biases against Iraqi (and Syrian) teams. Action in the ring actually takes up little time compared with bloodshed in the streets, and more so than pugilism, the sensation comes through of trying to live and strive to be exceptional in a society afflicted by rolling blackouts, government turmoil and pernicious terror attacks that kill hundreds in one day. Recommended for both sports and international/pan-Arabic affairs collections. Aud: H, C, P. (C. Cassady)