First conceived in 2000, the trilogy Goal! was dropped and then restarted production after WC 2002. This first Goal movie was made by 3 Brits in Hollywood who love soccer, 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 Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker), an illegal immigrant growing up in Los Angeles.
Notes from the DVD
All the performances are excellent, and the soccer looks pretty real. The story is entertaining with many funny moments, even though 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 this first film of the trilogy, Director Danny Cannon went back to producing TV shows like CSI.
Other notes from the DVD
- The lead singer of AC/DC plays a Newcastle fan in an LA bar.
- A night club scene includes Beckham, Zidane, and Raul.
- Kuno Becker was not a soccer player, so many of his playing scenes only show his upper body, and someone else’s legs appear to be doing the footwork.
- One of the creators played on Hollywood United FC.
Goal II: Living the Dream is the second movie in the series. I’ve never been able to find Goal 3.
8 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 8
Resources:
- Release Date: 2005-09-08 (France)
- IMDB
- WIKI
- Director: Danny Cannon
- Stars: Kuno Becker , Alessandro Nivola , Stephen Dillane
- Watch the Trailer
