Viewed in
2010
Formats
DVD
Premise
A Mexican-American footballer gets a chance to play in the English Premier League.
Liked
The cheesy charm.
Thoughts
Being an American, there are few futbol-oriented movies that I know of, so having a Mexican-American in England was an interesting twist to the underdog sports movie formula. I liked how it gave Santiago some character, touched on many aspects of the EPL world, and the game action scenes were pretty realistic. The only exception was when Santiago's teammate was shouting that he was open, when he was like two feet away from him.
It consisted of mostly unknowns, except for the dad from Billy Elliot, and Nicolas Cage's brother from Face/Off. Overall, everyone did fine in selling the mushy moments, especially lead Kuno Becker, with his pump-fake-fist-pump-and-yell. Also, there were assorted EPL cameos, especially one pre-MLS David Beckham, which was funny because one of Santiago's teammates was an overpaid diva with frosty tips.
One interesting section was that the beginning act mostly comprised of Mexican dialogue, but I did not see any English subtitles. I had the DVD subtitles on, and they were in Mexican for those lines, so it was a fun Spanish learning experience. Between all the Mexican and English accents, subtitles did help. Like a typical American, I really dug the way they talked with flair.
Like most movies of this kind, you pretty much know the obstacles (injuries, dream-crushing parent, bullying teammates) and the results, but they were done well enough to tug at my heart or make me cheer at the right moments. My biggest issue was the Santiago's implausible rise to stardom, as every episodic obstacle was neatly resolved, and how improbably patient his team was in a cutthroat premier league.
For a budding futbol fan like me, it had enough interesting twists to make it stand out in the deluge of cliched sports movies.
What I would change
More realistic path for Santiago, less cliches.
