Categories
Comedy

Review: ‘El penalti más largo del mundo’ (2005)

The Longest Penalty Kick in the World is a Spanish film that is so horribly boring I had to keep rewinding to watch the parts I had dozed through.

Categories
Drama Strong Sexuality

‘Eleven Men Out’ (2005) is not like Iceland at all

Eleven Men Out is not really a soccer movie. It has 30 seconds of soccer and a lot 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.

Categories
Kids

‘Die Wilden Kerle 2’ (2005) seems inappropriate

Die Wilden Kerle 2, aka The Wild Soccer Bunch 2, is popular in Germany, and maybe there it is family friendly. Maybe you have to be raised in Germany and understand German fairy tales to appreciate this movie. I thought I had accidentally switched channels to a nightmare sequence in a Fellini movie.

Categories
Drama

‘Personal Sergeant’ (2004) is so wrong

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

Categories
Kids

‘Shaolin Family Soccer’ (2004) imitates Mrs. Doubtfire

Shaolin Family Soccer is a movie whose title tries to ride the coat tails of Steven Chow’s popular Shaolin Soccer.

One of the actors, Wong Yat Fei (aka Yut Fei Wong), is in both movies as a Shaolin monk who can head the ball with such force that he can rip the ball through the goal net, bloody the goalkeeper’s hands, etc. Hence he is named Iron Head in the first movie.

Categories
Drama

‘When Beckham Met Owen’ (2004) exploitative at best

The filmmakers for this movie deceptively use the names of David Beckham and Michael Owen to attract attention. Because When Beckham Met Owen has no story of its own to draw viewers.

Categories
Drama

‘Barras Bravas’ (2004) Chilean West Side Story in a car

Barras Bravas (originally titled Azul y Blanco) is a very low budget Chilean spin on West Side Story — but without music, soccer, or any entertainment value. Two rival gangs, who belong to different supporters groups (barras bravas), drive around looking for each other and their two star-crossed lovers so they can have knife fights and kill each other.

Categories
Comedy

‘Liberated Zone’ (2003) nihilistic sex and racism

Liberated Zone (Befreite Zone) left me speechless. Three words describe how bad this German comedy is, and what it is really about: Nihilistic sex and Racism.

Categories
Drama

‘Historias de Fútbol’ (1997) is soccer Babel

Soccer Stories, or Historias de Fútbol, consists of 3 short stories set in Chile, but none of them are worth your time.