Film Reviews

Goal! 2: Living the Dream

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Alessandro Nivola
• Details: UK / 115mins (12A).

So here we are: the second of a three-part franchise documenting Santiago Munez's (Becker) rise from an amateur player in California, through his burgeoning professional career in the Newcastle Utd. ranks and onto playing alongside the Galacticos at Real Madrid (the third instalment will take him to the World Cup). His career in Spain starts well enough with Santiago coming off the bench and scoring with regularity. However, his private life begins to crumble as Santiago succumbs to the bling surrounding the Bernabeu, his long lost mother surfaces with his half-brother in tow and his fiancee Roz (Friel) doesn't want to move to Spain. For a long time Goal II was making a rather obvious, but nonetheless important point,that money is a massive factor in the corruption of gifted young footballers (Cashley Cole anyone?) and money has become the alluring factor for young players, rather than the pure joy of the game (rumours abound that a young Manchester City player recently stated that he'd rather own a Ferrari than an England cap). Goal II, for a long time, looked like it was going to put a knee-high challenge with the studs showing into the money aspect of the game, but then pulls out and injures itself in the process. Why can't we make a good football movie when American football, baseball and, to a lesser extent, basketball have enjoyed such success when translated to celluloid? Some may argue that with timeouts and the stop-start nature of the sports, our American counterparts can use close-ups of the hero (the pitcher on the mound, the quarterback before the snap) to build tension before that one final and all-important play. Football's perpetual motion doesn't offer that element and the use of close-ups, slow motion lollipops and the lack-lustre tackles the opposition attempt shatter the illusion. I'd like to see Roy Keane or Norman 'Bite-Your-Legs-Off' Hunter direct the next Goal movie. At least the match scenes, which is why we're watching, would have an air of realism about them.

Review by Gavin Burke