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. Brian Cox plays the Belfast owner and Keri’s dad; he appeared in 2 soccer movies that year. (A Shot at Glory in 2000, and more recently Believe)
6 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 6
Resources:
- Release Date: 2000-07-14 (Spain)
- IMDB
- WIKI
- Director: John Forte
- Stars: Keri Russell , Brian Cox , William Ash
- Watch the Trailer low res on Video Motion
Mad about Mambo has a scene described in the entertaining IMDB list below. Check out this list for some unusual movies to watch.
“Ghek Remembers Video Stores and their Employees in movies“.
