Monday, August 07, 2006
Review: Goal!
We spend so much of our movie discussions talking about clichés. You only have to sit in a pub and listen to the average conversation about films to see the amount of people who mercilessly attack flicks for being clichéd, and it’s usually true, as a inordinate amount of films seem to use them, a lot of the time because they feel the audience needs them. But some films work, even when they’re full of clichés. Even know you know exactly what’s going to happen, and can predict the whole movie from the first minute. Danny Cannon’s Goal! is such a film.
Young Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) is cliché number one. He’s a young Mexican-American living in L.A. who dreams of the big life, but the closest he gets to it is cleaning pools for the rich folk. He plays football (soccer) whenever he’s not working, and is damn good at it, but is convinced that it’ll never lead anywhere, because his father (cliché #2), who has worked his fingers to the bone since his mother left the family, believes he’ll only become a man when he works to support his family, despite both Santiago’s younger brother and Supportive Grandmother™ knowing he has the skills to, well, pay the bills.
Along comes cliché number three. While Santiago is pretending to be Ronaldinho for the local side, he’s spotted by once-famous-player-turned-down-on-his-luck-mechanic Glen Foy (Stephen Dillane) who says he’ll get an agent to come and watch him play. While Santiago is apprehensive, Foy says he promises, which brings in cliché number four, i.e. stumbling block one. The agent – played by fun character actor Sean Pertwee – is a complete wanker more interested in sun and trim than watching Santiago play, so he doesn’t turn up, and Santi (as he’s called) is left cursing the English.
But Foy makes one last promise before he has to go back to England: if Santi gets to the UK, he’ll set him up for a trial with Newcastle United, a huge club in terms of fame and support, if not success. But of course, Daddy won’t let him go, hence stumbling block number two, which gets even more desperate when the prick of a dad steals the money Santi has been saving and hiding in his football boots to buy a new truck. But hold on, here comes Supportive Grandmother™, who cobbles up all the cash that she’s been saving up for a moment just like this, along with a plane ticket, and tells him to get to England. Thus begins Santi’s voyage into fame, fortune, girls and all the trappings that come with it, all wrapped in the mud, rain and odd accents that are standard in the North East of England.
Like I said before, Goal! is as predictable as they come. You know he’s going to start out badly, before winning our hearts and the club’s, have an argument with the girlfriend, have a family tragedy, and then win her back and score the winning goal for the most important game for the club. It’s no spoiler to say that all happens, but with Goal!, it hardly matters. Games based around football are notorious for being utter shite (have you ever sat down and actually watched Victory with Sylvester Stallone and Pele?) but this is one that not only combines the fish out of water tale with the sporting action very well, but is a comprehensive examination of what the players get up to both on and on the pitch in today’s modern game.
Obviously, the scoring the winning goal and winning girl back are standard fare in these sorts of films, but there’s an insight into English sporting life that is commendable. For example, Santi’s first training session with the club isn’t a friendly kickabout, but a full initiation with well-filmed crunching tackles and feet flying everywhere. It doesn’t help that it’s being played in pouring rain, which makes the scene resemble John Candy’s mud-wrestling escapades in Stripes. It’s clear from that moment that this’ll be a hard task for Santi, but Kuno Becker is very likeable and full of modesty yet confidence, and a lot of naivety, so he’s very believable.
Another example of the life is ripped straight from the newspaper headlines, where Santi walks into a major scandal after moving in with the team’s star player, Gavin Harris (Alessandro Nivola). Harris introduces him to the town nightlife, with blaring dance clubs and cocaine, before throwing him into a room with four skimpily dressed blondes just in time for him to get photographed for the front page of the national paper the next day. Admirably, Santi doesn’t snitch on Harris, which allows him to call in a favour and get Harris – who regularly comes into work with a hangover and a poor sense of motivation – to get back on his game.
Nivola is very good as Harris, a far cry from most of his other roles but one that allows him to put on an impeccable English accent. To be honest, all of the actors are good, with the homely-but-hot Anna Friel as the girlfriend, Stephen Dillane’s Foy, and Cassandra Bell as Harris’ bored and frustrated girlfriend Christina, who has the best scene in the film and the only scene where it threatens to go outside the cliché zone. The film also has cameos from Alan Shearer, David Beckham, headbutter extraordinare Zinedine Zidane and Raul, and while most of them fare well, Beckham comes across like a virgin on prom night or a deer in headlights, whichever you prefer.
The footballing scenes are well done, although you can tell what was actually filmed on a match day and what wasn’t. But the actual behind-the-scenes stuff is more interesting, and by way of that makes the inevitable football result much more exciting and satisfying. And I also have to commend them for making his dream at least a bit believable. Not only are young Latin and South American kids now going to big clubs at early ages, but Newcastle (the club I support) aren't exactly Real Madrid (who incidentally Santi moves to in Goal! 2), so it's not like he wins the league or anything for them.
It’s really a Sunday afternoon movie. Something to watch while you digest your lunch, a quick and easy distraction that better than it really ought to be. But while it’s not the greatest movie in the world, my hope for Goal! is that maybe it’ll entice Americans into watching the sport as opposed to treating it like a quaint foreign thing while watching Monday Night Football. After all, every other country in the world can’t be wrong, can they?
7 out of 10
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