Next Goal Wins
A hackneyed formula is given the farcical treatment in a misguided remake of an award-winning documentary.
Mike Brett and Steve Jamison’s Next Goal Wins (2014) was an award-winning documentary about a heroically inept football team. Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins (2022) is a farce “inspired by real events” and based on the very same documentary. Not that a single second rings true. Matters tumble downhill with the on-screen introduction by Taika Waititi wearing a Fu Manchu moustache and ill-fitting dentures while putting on a silly voice. “Come and listen to this wonderful tale of woe,” he welcomes us. “Not woe as in, ‘Ah, bummer, man!’, but woe as in, ‘Whoa! That’s amazing! I can’t believe that pretty much actually happened – with a couple of embellishments along the way’!” It’s not a promising start.
This jokey tone is maintained throughout the film’s 103 minutes, roughly chronicling the story of the national football team of American Samoa who, in 2001, lost 31-0 to Australia, a historically disappointing score. In order to improve the team’s chances of qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the ‘Football Federation American Samoa’ engages the services of a Dutch-American coach, an alcoholic loser called Thomas Rongen. Of course, he is just one of a string of eccentrics who battles for centre stage in this comedy of errors, a charade that includes an overweight goalkeeper, a manager with cartoon boobs tattooed on his face (with a permanent marker) and a defender who is growing a pair of breasts. The joke is that all this actually happened and had it been played straight, the film would probably have been hilarious.
However, Taika Waititi, who previously directed the chaotically slapstick Thor: Love and Thunder, cannot resist taking the nudge, nudge approach, to make sure we don’t miss the inherent humour therein. Thus, poor Michael Fassbender – as Thomas Rongen – is reduced to a series of disbelieving reaction shots while Rongen battles with his own domestic problems, not least the fact that his wife (Elisabeth Moss) is sleeping with his boss (Will Arnett) and that he can’t get reception on his phone. There’s also the cheesy soundtrack, including the inexplicable insertion of Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ during a training session, and a flutter of lacklustre ‘background artists.’
One eccentric can enliven a movie but when everybody is eccentric there is no comic variation. Worse, Waititi’s comic rhythm is so repetitive that the gags become predictable, while the narrative momentum is non-existent, culminating in a climax that is deflatingly anti-climactic. It’s like enduring a terrible joke in which we can see the punchline a mile off.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Taika Waititi, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss, Uli Latukefu, Sisa Grey, Semu Filipo, Chris Alosio, Ioane Goodhue, Hio Pelesasa, Luke Hemsworth, Kaitlyn Dever.
Dir Taika Waititi, Pro Jonathan Cavendish, Garrett Basch, Taika Waititi, Mike Brett and Steve Jamison, Ex Pro Andy Serkis, Screenplay Taika Waititi and Iain Morris, Ph Lachlan Milne, Pro Des Ra Vincent, Ed Nicholas Monsour, Music Michael Giacchino, Costumes Miyako Bellizzi, Sound Ai-Ling Lee.
Imaginarium Productions/TSG Entertainment/Defender Films/Garrett Basch Production-Searchlight Pictures/Walt Disney Studios.
103 mins. UK/USA. 2022. US Rel: 17 November 2023. UK Rel: 26 December 2023. Cert. 12A.
