Goal! The Dream Begins reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 2.0 out of 4
Director: Danny Cannon Screenplay: Mike Jefferies, Adrian Butchart Cast: Kuno Becker, Anna Friel, Stephen Dillane MPAA Classification: PG (language, sexual situations, and some thematic material including partying)
In the same vein as Take the Lead, Stick It and Akeelah and The Bee, Goal! is a family drama that pits an unlikely youngster in the way of stolid competition. The world here is the Newcastle United soccer team. Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker), an illegal immigrant from Mexico, encounters the chance to leave his Los Angeles family to compete for the professional squad in Newcastle. The odds are stacked against him, of course: the boy has asthma, his father deeply resents his departure, he's had little professional training, and he's never witnessed the phenomenon of mud before, which he realizes to be a problem when he finds England to be steeped in the stuff. Along the way to his victory mentioned in the overzealous, exclamation-laden title, Santiago encounters all the expected contrivances youngsters now face in film these days, learning morals aimed squarely at the 7-12 year age group. The film is harmless and only boring with its utter lack of invention; just poor enough for me to hope its two sequels aren't fortunate enough to make it to theatres. One Goal! is enough, thank you very much.
The film shares many of the problems Stick It battled, primarily one of age difference. In Stick It, it's mentioned that Haley Graham is twenty-three years old, but still hangs out with friends attending prom. With Goal!, Santiago is at least over the age of twenty-one, as he legally drinks at bars with his father. So for all intensive purposes, each of these films is about adults, only directed towards children. With Stick It, the unreality is less jarring, as the peripheral characters are all beneath the age of eighteen. But Goal! asks us to believe in these adults dealing with lessons and morals meant for pre-teens. The film hints at darker, more mature occurrences among Santiago and his teammates-a girl is found fully-clothed in Santiago's apartment one morning, for instance-but it manages to hold tight to its PG rating. So there's a rift of unreality with this method, making us wonder why writers Mike Jefferies and Adrian Butchart couldn't just make an honest, direct film about a man's fight against real evils and real hardship to acceptance on a professional squad. Goal! is instead a soppy, watered-down version of this possibility, not attempting to widen its demographic with a story pertinent to its adult crowd.
But even when aimed at the children, Goal! struggles to find its feet with the dramatics. It relies mostly on reasons to boot Santiago from the team, finding drama only within those confines. The boy gets kicked off the team not once, not twice, but three times. Talk about desperation for drama. The only alternative outlet for this drama is to turn to Santiago's daddy issues. But this is a snarled mess of contrivance as well, ending in a bitter resolution that doesn't serve anybody.
Santiago's character is loveable, however, cleaning up some of the mess the script spreads around. The part was originally slated for Gael Garcia Bernal, but as he backed out it was relayed to Kuno Becker. The boy's handsome and convincing in his suit of humble humility, working as a fitting role model for the mounds of five-year olds scuttling about the soccer fields every Saturday morning. There's romance between Santiago and his nurse, Roz Harmison (Anna Friel). The relationship is less kinky than it sounds, opting more for a slim dose of maturity in the story.
And so again relating to its three predecessors this year, Goal! is a harmless, if weary, distraction for families. It boasts a likeable, good looking hero and some exciting soccer action. The ball bounces about as though on a string held by the Soccer Gods and the game's movement is brutal and fast. But the story itself is lame and plodding, limping about on some crutches of gasping contrivance.
-www.samseescinema.com
-- rec-arts-movies-reviews@robomod.net mailing list http://www.robomod.net/mailman/listinfo/rec-arts-movies-reviews
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews