“The meek shall inherit the Earth,” Jesus preached in his “Sermon on the Mount.”

By that ethos, Soane Tokelau should be landed gentry on his native Wallis Island in French Polynesia.

He doesn’t look it, a Polynesian hulk of 120 kilos (265 pounds). But when we meet him, this 19 year-old seems built for pushing around. He never looks anyone in the eye, never speaks until spoken to and then only softly.

Playing rugby seems out of character, but he does. Size alone makes him a prospect, and a home island talent scout, Abraham (Laurent Pakihivatau) is the first to bend the kid to his will. He talks him into taking a plane ticket and signing away a chunk of his future for a shot at playing rugby in France.

And then there’s his defiant, rageaholic father (Petelo Sealeu) puts his foot down, repeating the “WORTHLESS” label he’s long given the boy. The old man administers a power-cord beating for the kid’s budding defiance. Soane (Toki Pilioko) just whimpers and takes it. His mind is made up, and scoring his back won’t change it.

“Mercenary (Mercenaire)” is about Soane’s journey, a pitfall-packed sports drama built on a “Once Were Warriors” domestic tragedy. It’s conventional in its structure, exceptional in its dread. Because unlike young Soane, we can see the holes he’s about to fall into long before he does.

His father may treat his rebellion and savage beating as some Wallis Island rite of passage, even throwing him a farewell banquet, slaying the fatted pig for the family gathering. But Soane’s younger brother’s begging to come with him tell the real story.

Dad’s a mean, brutish drunk, prone to waving guns or machetes in the faces of those who stand up to him. It’s leave, or die.

Soane boards a plane with just the clothes on his slashed-up back, a family Bible his grandmother gave him and the address of a family cousin in France. As green as he is, he’ll need all that, and a lot of luck, because the moment be deplanes, his luck is bad.

He gives the French club rep his correct weight, leading to instant dismissal. Big time rugby wants its Polynesian players to be giants. Passersby on the street might ask Soane if he’s from the All Blacks, New Zealand’s famous Maori-packed squad. But no expert would make the mistake.

“He’s not what you’d call a beast,” is how one player describes him (in French with English subtitles). “Just a big teddy bear.”

The cousin (Mikaele Tuugahala) has little pity. The kid screwed up, and screwed over Abraham, who is out the money for a very pricey plane ticket, signing bonus, all of it. He should just go home.

But OK, sure. Let’s find somebody that’ll let him play as a semi-pro prospect.

Soane finds himself trying to make the grade with the Fumel minor league squad, teased and taunted by the native-born French players, who’re given to racist cracks (“Did you go ‘cannibal’ on her? Are you a savage, or what? How about a‘ Haka’ (the Pacific islander chest-thumping dance challenge made famous by New Zealand’s All Blacks)?”

Only the impoverished Georgian ex-pats on the team bond with the kid, one of them giving him advice (“Don’t get married” while trying to make a living in this sport.) and the film its title.

“We’re god–mned mercenaries.”

Writer-director Sacha Wolff skillfully navigates the inevitable training regimen in dialogue-free montages. Pilioko stays true to character, always averting his eyes, guileless in the extreme.

Sloane must get bullied and tested and bullied some more to make an impression on him, give him the desperation and fury he needs to succeed in this toughest of team sports.

The “dread” I mentioned earlier comes from Soane’s attitude towards Abraham, his ignoring of the don’t-get-attached-romantically advice thanks to cashier and club groupie Coralie (Iliana Zabeth).

Wolff’s made a perfectly passable making-the-grade-in-your-game sports picture, but wrapped it in Wallis Island sequences that give us that “Haka,” and give the movie cultural currency.

A film that could have just been a standard-issue rugby primer– with subtitles –becomes something with grit and heart, a rite-of-passage tale that’s as revealing of the island culture that’s embraced rugby as it is of the sport itself.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, nudity, alcohol abuse

Cast:  Toki Pilioko, Iliana Zabeth, Mikaele Tuugahala, Laurent Pakihivatau, Petelo Sealeu

Credits: Written and directed by Sacha Wolff.  A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:39