Soccer Movies

Soccer Movie: Eleven Men Out -2005

Eleven Men Out is not really a soccer movie. it has 30 seconds of soccer and alot of sexuality, mostly gay (rated R). As a character says, there is not much else to do in Iceland. A top player comes out of the closet, switches to a team that has some gays, the straights quit, and the team becomes all gay. They win the league because the other teams forfeit. in the end, the team inspires an uplifting gay pride parade. But other than the parade, this movie is dark & depressing. All of the characters are unsympathetic, mean, and unpleasant. I can understand why Vikings, after being stuck on a boat with people like this, would run around killing everybody once they land.

There is one scene where the Ref's nose is broken, and with bloody face, he finishes out the game. They must be really tough in Iceland.

In Icelandic with English subtitles.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427906/

 

Soccer Movie: Mean Machine - 2001

The Longest Yard is one of my favorite movies, and unlike Adam Sandler's recent remake, "Mean Machine" is almost as good as the original. It's not just because this British soccer version stays pretty close to the original story and dialogue. It's because Vinnie Jones--a former pro footballer--and the entire supporting cast put in solid performances, and the film is well-edited by Eddie Hamilton (Kick-Ass and X-Men 1st Class). Jason Statham plays the bald crazed bare-hands murderer role, except he is the team's goalkeeper. Jason Flemyng is the game announcer.

What's surprising is why this first full-feature starring role did not do more for Vinnie's career. Anyways, soccer is well-portrayed in this movie, and there is a lot of it. The dirty fouls of the guards vs cons game are very funny because they are so over-the-top (I hope so, anyway). Don't teach your kids the demonstrated ~23 ways to maim an opponent.

I actually watched this on cable this weekend, but you can DVD it from the usual places.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291341/

 

Soccer Movie: Victory - 1981

It's sad that many think Victory is the iconic American soccer movie, because this movie is pretty ordinary and has aged poorly. Directed by the legendary John Huston, and starring Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone, the film must have had a pretty large budget. Victory is a WWII POW camp movie that pays heavy homage to "The Great Escape"; the POWs escape via a soccer game. It's very slow and the soccer is not very engaging, although maybe that's because I am not familiar with the many International soccer stars who are in the movie, including Pelé.

Michael Caine and Max Von Snydow put in good performances as men who miss soccer so much they take personal risks in order to put on a competitive match between the German national team and the Allied prisoners. Stallone, on the other hand, proves he cannot act when required to say more than 4 words at a time, and his hyperactive character is annoying at best. Why he did this movie between Rocky 2 and 3 is a puzzle.

The story is creative in how the prisoners make their escape, but other than that it is not really worth the time. Pelé's character does two bicycle kicks, some juggling and a few moves.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083284/

 

Soccer Movie: Mad About Mambo - 2000

Mad About Mambo isn't known as a soccer movie, but it portrays soccer (and dance) ambitions in a light-hearted boy-wins-girl story that is sweet, humorous, and romantic. A 16-year-old striker (William Ash) learns to samba with Keri Russell so that he can tryout for Belfast United. Ash's innocence and enthusiasm make the film believable, and he even has soccer skills. The soccer and dancing are both fairly good. There's a sense of the Belfast environment, and there are comedic touches, such as the fashion-designing goalkeeper, that build into the striker's success. Plus, nice performance by Tim Loane as the high school soccer coach/priest.

The movie has two slight problems. For one, the actors are mid-twenties and really too old to be playing sweet sixteen. Secondly, before showing the movie to kids, be forewarned that there is a scene where the couple strip down to underwear and seductively samba in the pool.

Anyhow, cute movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156757/fullcredits#cast

 

Soccer Movie: The Big Green - 1995

Okay, The Big Green is a formulaic Disney movie about an underdog soccer team. Disney knows how to create a film that doesn't age, that can be shown to successive generations of little kids for decades. The Big Green is the Disney equivalent of a Twinkie.

The only plot point that could eventually date the movie is that the star player's mother takes him into hiding after admitting she is an illegal immigrant using a fake SSN. This film is Steve Guttenberg's first soccer movie and another bad performance. He plays a Texas sheriff with a ridiculous accent that thankfully fades away by the end.

Despite having only one actor with soccer ability, the field play is straight forward and well portrayed, without fancy time slicing. They actually spend quite a bit of time showing every kick in a shoot-out. This movie is not streamable on netflix, and there are no extras on the DVD.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112499/

 

Soccer Movie: Soccer Mom - 2008

The first time I saw Soccer Mom on cable, I didn’t like it. The soccer was bad, and the makeup for Missi Pyle—who masquerades as a famous male Italian footballer in order to coach her daughter’s team—was so unbelievable it was distracting. But this time, I had the DVD and watched the extras first, and that changed my perspective.

The extras show how Missi and "Lorenzo" both had fake noses and chins in order to look similar. The Lorenzo actor also matched Missi’s gestures. I had wondered why "Lorenzo" looked and acted odd, even for an Italian ☺. I also ignored the soccer, which except for some stunt double juggling, is at a U12G rec level.

When I filter out those problems, I actually like this movie quite a bit. It has a lot of grown-up humor. Missi resembles Lucille Ball in both looks and flexibility, and she gives a good performance. A couple of cute lines:

Mom as Coach Lorenzo to players: “what are you waiting for, an evite? www get your butts on the field dot com!”
- - -
Mom: Becca's passing like oh--what's her name--some sort of meat product…
Coach Tony: Mia Hamm?
Mom: Yeah!

Missi describes the film as being “for anyone who wants to do whatever it takes for someone they love. And then of course there’s some good old-fashioned cross-dressing.” Which means that this is not really a kids movie. Emily Osment (sister of I see Dead People) is unattractive as the sullen 14YO daughter. Nah, this movie is for moms.

It was financed in part by Ladies Home Journal, who wanted to develop “a series of family films that target moms (25-54) who celebrate and cherish their family relationships.” The final credit is “Ladies’ Home Journal. Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman.”

The producer, Bogner Entertainment, Inc. (BEI), designs films with embedded branding whose titles are based on highly recognizable concepts, e.g. soccer moms. I wondered why so many scenes were shot in a Dodge Caravan, and it turned out that this was part of the branding concept, i.e. product placement on steroids:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/business/media/26adco.html

TheSoccerMomMovie.com website is still up and even has the slideset used to pitch for private financing. The budget for the movie was $3.5M, but it went straight to DVD. In the slideset, BEI claims that:
Soccer movie average gross = $11M
Gender-bending comedy average gross = $31M
http://thesoccermommovie.com/COMPANY/Soccer_Mom_BusinessOverview.pdf

I think this movie is worth watching. Even though the investors probably lost all their money, and LHJ did not make another movie in their empowerment series.

BTW, Joy Fawcett is in this movie, but all she does is stand up and wave to the crowd. The girls’ tournament takes place at a big soccer complex in Santa Clarita. I am not familiar with CalSouth, but I’m jealous.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059980/
Not streamable on Netflix.

 

Soccer Movie: Green Street Hooligans - 2005

After suffering the mindless violence of "The Football Factory", I was reluctant to watch Green Street Hooligans. But what a surprise--Green Street completely sucks you in. Elijah Wood is a Harvard student with so little self-esteem, he takes a drug possession rap for his roommate, who has better prospects. He runs away to England, where he becomes the Yank outsider in the GSE, a (fictitious) West Ham United supporters firm. Charlie Hunnam electrifies as a thug who turns out to have the heroic qualities of real leadership.

Director-writer Lexi Alexander weaves these two into a story that shows the humanity in hooliganism--how it can be brotherhood, fraternal love, standing up for others, and in the end, learning to stand up for oneself. She explains how middle class men get caught up in the competition to increase their firm's reputation. She knows because her brother was a hooligan in Germany, and co-writer Dougie Brimson has written many books about hooliganism.

But apparently, some British critics were very harsh on this movie because the cockney accents were wrong, the story unauthentic and too Americanized. Hey, for me, this movie helped me understand the San Jose Ultras. And Ebert & Roeper gave it two thumbs up.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385002/

As far as soccer, there is footage from a West Ham game. You get a real sense of what it is like to be in an EPL stadium, and to live in the most video-surveilled country in the world. There is alot of gang fighting, but it all carries the story. There is a cute scene of Hunnam's schoolboys team crushing Elijah, who fills in as goalkeeper.

In English, but I had to turn on subtitles in order to understand the dialogue. Watch this movie!

 

Soccer Movie: Personal Sergeant (2004)

Personal Sergeant is neither a soccer story nor a movie for your kids. A crusty Korean War veteran Marine is forced to babysit his 11yo granddaughter. They slowly bond while he trains her to play with the high school JV soccer team. In the end, she and her “p***y” father (as the Marine calls his son) both develop the gumption that the old man possesses.

There are so many things wrong with this movie, but it’s not worth spending more than a paragraph on it. The characters are all unsympathetic. The production values are horrible; was it shot on a VHS camera? The only point of the soccer scenes is to show U14G teammates and opponents tripping and pushing the little girl on the pitch. But not one person in this movie knows how to play.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454625/

 

Soccer Movie: Carlitos y el Campo de los Sueños (2008)

"Carlitos and the Field of Dreams" is predictable but enjoyable. Carlitos, a 12yo orphan, sneaks out of the orphanage with the help of his fellow inmates, in order to play for Spain’s junior national team. The orphanage’s maintenance man becomes the team’s coach. The pair help win the European Junior Cup.

There is actually quite a bit of good soccer play in this movie. While someone else’s legs do the majority of the work for the lead actor, in the team practices and tournament play there are obviously quite a few good little players in Spain. Coach Diego is very attractive and delivers a good line that you’d want to hear from every youth coach:
“On the field, we show who we really are. Selfish, brave, cowardly… Soccer brings out the best in us, but also the worst. So let’s find everyone’s strength and become a great team.”

A cute touch that my buddy enjoyed was that Coach Diego teaches Carlitos patience by making him learn how to catch fish. There is a bit appearance by Raúl, helping to run the national team tryouts.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135964/
DVD has no extras. In Spanish with English subtitles.

 

Soccer Movies: La Copa de los Sueños (2007)

La Copa de los Suenos, or "The Cup of Dreams" or “Soccer Dreams”, is another low-budget soccer film. Shot in Tijuana, the orphans in a children’s home enter a tournament in order to win enough money to pay for the house mom’s brain tumor surgery.

The screenplay is incredibly banal, the acting is terrible, and the soccer is not worth watching until the tournament at the end. This tournament takes place at “Planet Gol”, an outdoor soccer arena that is similar to the indoor arena at Off the Wall Soccer in Santa Clara, CA--a hockey rink converted to soccer.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/La-Copa-de-los-Suenos/70116719
DVD available on Netflix. Does not have any extras. In Spanish with English subtitles.

 

Soccer Movie: Goal! The Dream Begins (2005)

First conceived in 2000, the trilogy “Goal!” was dropped and then restarted after WC 2002. This first Goal movie was made by 3 Brits in Hollywood who love soccer (in fact, one of them played on Hollywood United FC), and therefore, they try to portray the game realistically and honestly. The creators felt they were breaking ground because there had not been a soccer movie made with a decent budget ($10M).

Instead of making this a rag-to-riches story about an English boy establishing himself at Newcastle, they decided to instead craft it around an illegal immigrant growing up in Los Angeles. All the performances are excellent, and the soccer looks pretty real. The story is entertaining with many funny moments, even tho they wrote the screenplay in just 3 weeks.

The DVD has some good extras that explain how the actors were incorporated into actual game footage, including running onto the field for post-game handshakes. The audio commentary has a wealth of detail on movie-making and how their story came together. After Goal I, the director went back to producing TV shows like CSI.

The lead singer of AC/DC plays a Newcastle fan in an LA bar. A night club scene includes Beckham, Zidane, and Raul.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380389/
DVD is on Netflix

 

Soccer Movie: Coach (2010)

Coach is a straight-to-DVD film by first-time-feature director-writer Will Frears. It's located in New York City and stars Hugh Dancy as a 30yo slacker and soccer bum. He doesn't need to work, but he finds romance and purpose when he takes a job coaching middle school kids to the league championship.

The problem is, you don't care what he does. Some reviews call this a coming of age movie, but it's hard to care about a guy who's coming of age at 30. OK, so maybe that applies to alot of us BigSoccer posters, but it's just not very engaging movie material. That's why I fell asleep twice while watching it and had to drink 2 espressos to make it all the way through! The soccer can't keep you awake either.

Anyhow, Hugh Dancy strikes me as a very poor man's Orlando Bloom. The story appears to be somewhat auto-biographical for Frears, as he is the son of a highly successful director but is making pablum like this at 35.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334521/
The DVD is on Netflix. No extras.
Both Dancy and Frears are British, but it's in English without any British accents!

 

Soccer Movie: Pelada - 2010

Even tho someone has already posted a summary, this movie is so good that I'm adding my own review.

The documentary Pelada follows a pair of collegiate players who, unable to make the pros, channel their competitive-soccer addiction by travelling the world looking for Pelada--not a drug, but a Brazilian word for pick-up game. A story like this is of course passionate about soccer, and it is supported by wonderful cinematography* that surrounds you with a sense of the game and the environment in which the peladas are played.

Equally fascinating is the story behind the story: how a 4-person team of 20-somethings financed (grants, friends, and facebook), filmed (2 Sony videocameras), and edited (on $10,000 of mac's that they won in a contest) 400 hours of video into a feature film. I remember seeing creators Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham on Fox Football Fone-in, asking viewers to donate money to help finish their movie.

Only a few stories can be told in a movie. So they had to limit themselves, and they pursued the most striking situations: a Bolivian prison, a Kenyan slum, the highrise rooftops of Tokyo, and a women's pelada in Iran, where the ladies played in hijab. There are a few stories where formerly good players have had to give up the game so that they can make a living. In the end, the creators too must face their own realities, that they aren't the superstars they set out to be. But I suspect the catharsis of making this final love poem to soccer has helped.

http://www.pelada-movie.com/about/index.html
Now streamable on Netflix. Many interviews in the native language. (Interestingly, the creators said that since they could not afford translators, they sometimes didn't know what interviewees had said until after they started editing.)

Tell your fellow soccer addicts to watch this movie!

*by Rebekah Ferguson (Duke soccer) and Ryan White (broke but talented documentarian)

 

Soccer Movie: Goal Dreams - 2006

Goal Dreams follows the Palestinian National Team in the month leading up to their all-important WC 2006 qualifying game against Uzbekistan. The team has many problems to overcome. They must practice in Egypt and play their game in Qatar, in an empty stadium. 6 cannot exit Gaza until 2 weeks before the game, so at times the early practices only have 5-9 players. The players have many communication and diversity issues. 1 player is from New York, 6 are Spanish-speakers from Chile (which has a Palestinian population of <0.5M). Austrian coach Alfred Riedl speaks English with a heavy German accent, and his Arabic translator often tells the players the opposite of what he says. And it is hard to find a style for the team, between the Chileanos' technicality and the others' physicality.

What I learned from the film is that its purpose and that of the team was to establish Palestine as a nation, because it is a state with no country. The chaos they live with is so difficult, and I wonder if Bob Bradley is experiencing the same problems right now with Egypt. While the situation is sympathetic, I did not find this movie very compelling; watching the soccer drills was somewhat interesting. Also, the way the players were sweating profusely in Qatar, just lined up for the anthems, tells you that WC 2022 is not going to be fun for anyone.

http://www.goaldreams.com
DVD on netflix. Much dialog is in Arabic with English subtitles.

 

Soccer Movie: Sixty Six - 2006

Sixty Six is director Paul Welland's autobiographical tale of woe about how his Bar Mitzvah was ruined by the nearby England vs Germany WC 1966 Final. In his own words, "It is a very cruel movie", and he believes it is humorous. But after the boy pins all his self-worth on having a party to remember, watching him suffer one humiliation after another is nothing but painful.

Only at the end did I find some relief, where footage from the game is incorporated in such a way that the actors look like they are at the stadium. And it is cute to see what England fans wore in support of their team.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493450/
Streamable on Netflix, but why bother? Sixty Six is a miserable movie.

...the movie ends with a nice homily: "What happens when you become a man is, you stop blaming your dad for not being perfect. You realize he's just a man and you love the man he is." But in interviews, the director admitted the semi-happy ending was the one he wished had really happened, and he blamed his mom for screwing up his Bar Mitzvah.

 

Soccer Movie: A Shot at Glory - 2000

A Shot at Glory starts off with a bit of fun--the ashes of a long time fan are poured onto the Kilnockie stadium turf so that he can "be with the lads". It's during practice, and as the team distractedly stands in respect, they juggle the ball from one to another down the line. But unlike "The Match" (another Scottish soccer movie made a year earlier), Glory doesn't continue that humor.

Robert Duvall is the gaffer of a 2nd division Scottish team whose American chairman (Michael Keaton) forces him to take his estranged son-in-law Jackie back in the squad, after the player's fall from grace due to age and bad behavior in the EPL. Played by Rangers' greatest goalscorer and current manager Ally McCoist, Jackie and the gaffer take the small town team to the finals of the Scottish Cup.

The movie centers on Duvall's character, but his face and performance look constipated, as if he needs to focus all his energy to embody a thick Scottish accent. His conflicts make little sense: with his daughter, Jackie, and a former co-manager (Brian Cox who is also in Mad About Mambo). There is very little emotion in the story, even to explain the violence of the Celtic-Ranger rivalry. Unable to make us care about more than the soccer, the movie falls pretty flat about halfway through. That's probably why it had an almost non-existent release, even with an estimated $9M budget.

There are some interesting soccer scenes. During games, the teams can hear their opponent's manager yelling through the thin walls of the locker room. The gaffer takes the lads to a farm where they train on farm equipment and run through piles of grain. There are a lot of well-known Scottish players on the pitch, but I'm unfamiliar with them. The soccer isn't well choreographed because most of the goals are scored with the GKs' hands at their sides. Claudio Reyna supposedly has an appearance, but I didn't catch it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0193854
not yet in Netflix

 

Soccer Movie: Ladybugs - 1992

Ladybugs is the first soccer movie to make me laugh all the way through! ... but you need to like the blue humor of Rodney Dangerfield (Coach Chester) and Jackée (his Admin and Asst Coach).

In the story, Chester and Jackée know nothing about soccer, but he volunteers to coach his boss' daughter's team in the hopes of getting a long-deserved promotion. Chester gets his girlfriend's young son to put on a wig so that he can take the Ladybugs to the championship. On the way, "Martha" teaches the girls to play so that in the end they can win on their own.

Lessons aside, this is definitely not a movie you want to show kids--there is a sex joke or leering shot every few minutes. In the championship game, as the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile leads a band across the field at half-time, Jackée asks Rodney, aren't you going to say something? And it's the only time he passes up an obvious line.

The movie is well put-together and earned $14M in 1992, which probably makes it one of the biggest soccer movie moneymakers. Shot in Denver. Nobody in this movie can play soccer, but it doesn't matter, because it's all a joke. E.g., a military-style coach tells his team and then all his fans to get down and give him 30 after a goal is scored against them.

Besides all the good jokes (which are listed on imdb), there is one line that alot of soccer parents might like, and which Chester says once he realizes the error of his ways and refuses to let his must-win boss bench his own daughter.

Chester: The best, the best. That's all I keep hearing. You want to be the best.
Let me ask you this, what good is being the best if it brings out the worst in you.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104670/
DVD from Netflix; no extras.

One sad note. The nice acting by Jonathan Brandis (Matt/Martha) made the movie credible. He committed suicide at age 27.

 

Soccer Movie: The Damned United - 2009

Michael Sheen portrays the rise and fall of football manager Brian Clough, a brilliant but brash man who can't keep his mouth shut and defies his chairman repeatedly. With his assistant Peter Taylor, they take Derby County from the bottom of 2nd division in 1967 to the 1st division championship in 1972. (The movie compresses and rearranges the time scale a bit in depicting the story.) In 1974, Clough becomes manager of hated rival Leeds United, but without Taylor, he is his own worst enemy and lasts only 44 days.

When watching The Damned United, besides Sheen's performance, I wondered why is this soccer movie so good? Well, it turns out that this BBC film has quite a pedigree behind it: Director Peter Hooper made "The King's Speech". And screenwriter Peter Morgan wrote "The Queen", "The Last King of Scotland", and "Frost/Nixon". These three are brilliant at strong character dramas.

The DVD has a lot of extras that give background on Brian Clough and how the movie was made, including commentary by director, producer, & Sheen. The director mentions they felt it critical to make the football real, so they hired the best footballing actors around. Michael Sheen is also quite a player himself.

Besides believable soccer, there is also a bit of footage showing how brutally Leeds played in the 70s. One reason Clough failed at Leeds was because in his first meeting with the players, he tells them to toss all their trophies and hardware in the trash bin, because they were all earned by cheating.

The movie was made for $10M but only earned $4M box office. It had only a limited release in the US.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226271/
DVD on Netflix

 

Soccer Movie: Goal II: Living the Dream - 2007

Goal 2 continues the rags-to-riches fantasy of Santiago Munez, who migrates from the streets of LA to become a super-sub at Newcastle. In this second installment, Santi and his buddy Gavin end up at Real Madrid, with Santi on his way up and Gavin on his way down. The movie finishes with both men on the pitch for Real Madrid against Arsenal in a Champions League final.

Goal 2 has the same writers but a new director. The Santi and Gavin characters are entertaining, and the story creates many conflicts for Santi, such as a reunion with the mother who abandoned him, fallings out with his pregnant (unknown to him) fiance and his agent, plus a street urchin half-brother and paparazzi get him into trouble. But without participation from the supporting cast (e.g. Stephen Dillane) that made Goal 1 so enjoyable, the acting in this episode does not grab you.

However, if you are a fan of Real Madrid or Arsenal, you should enjoy the inclusion of their game (actually an early round), and filming inside the RM locker room. There is also footage from a RM tour of Japan, which looks like the same footage I saw in a RM documentary. Anyhow, the camera loves David Beckham and his tattoos, so you can savor that as well as the many football megastars in the footage of several RM games that are included. This episode has alot more game footage than the first.

Steve McManaman has a few speaking lines as an RM assistant coach. He had retired from Man City around the time of filming (2005). His participation is notable, because he left RM as a player in 2003 after helping Beckham settle in there. And, the excesses portrayed in the film probably reflect his own superstar life, as the media reported his sex scandals and labelled him one of "The Spice Boys", as well as "McMoneyMan" for his contract demands.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473360/
Streamable on netflix.