REVIEWED - GOAL!When Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker), a hard-working illegal immigrant with feet of gold, returns to his bedroom at night, he touches a poster of the World Cup. The makers of Goal! must surely empathise with their hero each time he makes that hopeful gesture. Santiago dreams of playing in Germany next year. Danny Cannon, his producers and crew, already at work on Goal! 2, trust that the concluding film in the proposed trilogy will detail his triumph.
Notwithstanding the support already offered by the Premier League, Newcastle United and, one assumes, FIFA, there is a great deal resting on the success of this first picture. As it happens, Goal! isn't much good - some of the showcased sporting clichesare so old they wear baggy shorts - but that may not matter to a worldwide audience desperate for anything that even reminds them of football.
Making one, probably futile, concession to the American market, the picture begins in LA, where Santiago is spotted knocking a ball about by former Toon midfielder Glen Foy (Stephen Dillane). Impressed by the boy's raw talent, Glen phones the current Newcastle Manager, an Arsene Wenger simulacrum played amusingly by Marcel Iures, and arranges for a trial.
Santiago has the kind of argument with his father that dreamers often do in films, but, after his granny pawns some heirlooms for the airfare, manages to make his way to Tyneside. Setbacks are cautiously rationed out as he progresses towards success.
Becker is a charming enough bloke, and Alessandro Nivola does good work as the boozy striker who spends too much time in the tabloids and too little in the gym. But very quickly the waves of inevitability become overpowering and one finds oneself praying for something unexpected to happen. Please don't let Santiago's father come to forgive him. Could we somehow avoid having the pretty nurse fall in love with him? Would it be possible to arrange it so that the darkest moments do not immediately precede the metaphorical dawn? Such pleading is futile.
All this might not be so irritating were it not for Cannon's brashly vulgar direction. The endless helicopter shots of Newcastle's not-all-that-arresting skyline are bothersome enough, but the repeated use of Oasis - a band far too ancient to be cool, but not quite ancient enough for revival - on the soundtrack is simply unforgivable.
The director's greatest failures occur, however, during the football sequences. The game has always proved too fluid and unstructured to accommodate the demands of cinema, and Cannon is forced to fall back on the old chestnut of the last minute set-piece. That half-decent footie pic still eludes us.
