While the DVD title is Street Soccer, Peloteros means ball players, or in this context, footballers. The movie is a coming of age summer tale of six boys in a poor Peruvian neighborhood who enter a tournament to compete against older and semi-pro players.
While the premise sounds family-oriented, the movie is disturbing. The tournament requires uniforms, so the boys rob the local liquor store to raise cash. There is sex, nudity, masturbation, and domestic abuse throughout the movie. The 14-15 year old boys smoke and drink beer and whisky while riding tricycles and playing with stuffed animals.
As a going away present for the teammate who is moving to the USA, they commit another robbery so that they can treat themselves to a whorehouse. All the women in this film are either prostitutes or only get what they need through seduction. At the whorehouse, one boy finds out his mother works there. After the tournament, he shoots her husband. It kind of breaks up the band.
The soccer tournament in the movie is shot from such a long distance, it is difficult to see the play, but it looks authentic enough. At least the goal celebrations look real. But don’t let the poster for this film fool you parents; this is not a family friendly movie. Like Liberated Zone, the real point of Peloteros is sex.
This is a movie you should not waste your time on.
2 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 2
Resources:
- Release Date: 2006-06-29 (Peru)
- DVD title is Street Soccer
- The DVD is in std def format and has no extras
- In Spanish with English subtitles
- IMDB
- Director: Coco Castillo
- I’m actually glad I could not find a Trailer
