Film Reviews

Studs

• Rating:
• Director: Paul Mercier
• Starring: Brendan Gleeson
• Details: Ireland, 90mins, 15s.

Playing on a wind swept rainy pitch with a hangover was never easy for the players of amateur Sunday league football club Emmet Rovers - especially when you're at the bottom of the table. With no manager, no ambition and, soon, no ground if the developers have their way, it is all a little too much for the ever-suffering captain Bubbles (Wilmot) who is on the verge of hanging up his boots. But just as the team is about to collapse into another dressing room fight, in walks larger-than-life Walter Keegan (Gleeson) who proposes to take over the team. Initially sceptical at his tactics, the team soon bond with Keegan and go on a hell of a cup run that could take them to the final for the first time in the club's history. But is Keegan who he says he is?
So what's it like? To paraphrase Barton Fink "Brendan Gleeson - football movie - what do you need, a road map?" Studs is highly recommended to those who have ever headed a muddy ball on a cold Sunday morning, and think they have just being hit with a sledgehammer. With most football movies (Goal!, When Saturday Comes, Escape To Victory), the worst scenes were those on the actual pitch but this low-budget gem shows the studs when it matters most. Mercier, who has obviously played football, gets the camera right into the action so there is none of your usual crap attempts at tackles and windy, snaky runs down the wing actually look like windy, snaky runs down the wing. The football scenes get the best laughs (training by the headlights of cars, the silky move that never comes off, the dressing room abuse) and it is only when Mercier confronts the off-pitch subplots to give the film a little gravitas that it falls down. But this deserves to be seen as Studs scrapes a jammy last minute away goal in the first leg.

Review by Gavin Burke