Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a review of the UK football (soccer to us yanks) flick GOAL. Sounds like it could go either way to me, even though the below review is mostly positive. It'll have to go a long way to top Lexi Alexander's HOOLIGANS in my book, but then again HOOLIGANS isn't really about the game of football. FYI... I hear Alexander is taking HOOLIGANS on a college tour, trying to build up word of mouth and finally nab a distributor. How many film festival awards does that movie need to make before it's picked up? Sheesh... Anyway, back to GOAL... Enjoy the review below!
Hey Harry, Moriarty,
I'm based in the UK & have been a long time visitor to the site, and this is my first time sending you guys anything. Tonight I got to attend a very early test screening for the film "GOAL" directed by Danny (Judge Dredd, CSI) Cannon & starring Kuno Becker. Anyway I didn't remember seeing any reviews being posted for this film, and I remembered that Moriarty posted some information about this film a while back - so thought i'd drop you a quick review.
The version of the film that I saw was not all complete, and we were advised that some of the effects weren't finished & this was apparent with some of the crowd scenes etc.
So now to the film. We're introduced to the main character Santiago at a very early age, maybe aged 7 & even then it's made clear that football is special in this kids life. The next scene shows Santiago's family escaping across the boarder of Mexico in the middle of the night, to which the movie cuts through to the present day in LA. Here we find an older Santiago working as a maintenance man/gardener along with his father. Aswell as this job, Santiago also works as a bust boy - but still manages to play in a local footy (soccer) team. It is during these local league games that we first catch a glimpse of his footy skills & I can assure you that they don't displease the audience. I was amazed and very impressed at what I saw & it made me wish that I had the kind of skill that our main character posessed - not since Manchester United's Christiano Ronaldo had I seen this kind of skill, but anyway moving on - during one of Santiago's matches, he catches the attention of Glen Foy (Stephen Dillane) an ex football scout. The two have a chat, and eventually Glen tries to have an agent attend his next game. This falls through and Glen does his best to help Santiago further - so much that he uses his old connections and arranges for Santiago to try out for Newcastle United. Much to his father's disaproval & following some much needed help from his Grandmother, Santiago travels to the UK and hooks up with Glen in Newcastle.
From here on, the road is bumpy for our soon to be football star - he at first fails to impress the coach at his first football trial, he manages to get a 2nd shot and has a months trial with the squad, then fails to mention that he's asthmatic which comes back to haunt him in a match with the reserve team, he's dropped from the squad and is about to leave for the airport in a cab - to which his cab goes on a detour to pick up another fellow player - who then helps Santiago out by getting him a 3rd chance. From here things get a little easier for our hero, as he performs well on the pitch and impresses his team mates and coach & eventually makes the first team.
The film is pretty solid in my opinion, though a little predictable at times - but hey it's not really a popcorn flick, more of a film about football and dare I say it "Following one's dreams......". The acting was pretty good and I especially liked the main actor Kuno Becker as Santiago. He had your typical footballer good looks and he had a certain charm about him that made you want to see him succeed. The rest of the cast did a pretty decent job, though Alessandro Niola's dodgy cockny accent made me cringe at times & to this day I still see him as Pollux Troy !!
I should add that the famous footballers that were mentioned in Moriarty's previous post only made a brief appearance; Beckham met Santiago at a party and even them it was only for around 2 min, Raul & Zidane also made a brief appearance at the same party and were on screen for a few min also. I know that these famous names may attract people to see this film, but take my word, this film is worth seeing for it's values regardless of the famous footballers that may be attached to it - this film was a like a grown up "When Saturday Comes" - for those who have seen this film, you'll know what to expect from this film. For me one of the best things about this film was the way in which it captured the great enthusiasm & love of the game from the perspective of its fans - in this case the Newcastle United fans. The scenes showing the reactions of the fans in the local pubs was priceless & had the audience in stitches, worth seeing it for the Geordie accents. I really hope that Cannon doesn't change much to this film as all in all it's a great football film & one that could do well as a trilogy - which was previously suggested. This was something that wasn't mentioned to us by the research group who hosted this screening, but it was lightly hinted at from the questionnaires that we filled out at the end of the screening.
If you use this, you can call me Pinksquirrel.
