122. 90 Minutes; movie review
Cert 18
82 mins
BBFC advice: Contains very strong language
Hold on a minute... should an 18-certificate really be attached to a few old blokes swearing as they are kicking lumps out of each other on a Sunday morning footy pitch?
Meanwhile, 12A is regularly attributed to movies where the body count runs into hundreds.
Consequently, I am left to presume that the c-word is officially worse than death in the eyes of the British Board of Film Classification.
I have attended much Sunday morning football as a (bad) player and as a father of a then petulant teenager and reckon its representation in Simon Baker's 90 Minutes is pretty authentic.
During almost every match, appalling language was used liberally either on the pitch or off it but never have the repercussions stretched further than the park in which the matches were played.
I'm not defending it but it has no parallel to war, murder, rape or the carnage which is represented on the big screen every week.
90 Minutes stars Anton Saunders as Nick, a stressed amateur football team manager whose marriage is collapsing.
In common with all Sunday morning coaches, he overinflates the importance of a match despite his team being old, pot-bellied and having little discernible sporting talent.
The movie unfolds both on and off the pitch at London's famous Hackney Marshes where the likes of former England centre-half Rio Ferdinand were spotted. Indeed, Ferdinand is executive producer and has a small cameo in the film.
Aside of Nick trying to save his marriage while leading his team to victory, there are other parallel stories which include a troubled teen (Robert Ristic) who has been cajoled to watch his estranged dad (Leon Sua), a gambling addict club secretary and a love triangle.
All this is under the gaze of a scout from a professional club.
It all leads to the type of Sunday morning I remember vividly while standing in the freezing cold watching my boy with side-of-pitch gossip, angry shouting from the sidelines and fists flying on the field.
Baker has encapsulated all of this in just 82 minutes and with a very low budget.
Indeed, it is so compact that it felt more like a pilot episode of a TV series rather than a film.
I would have been happy if that were the case. It gave me a thirst to see more of the characters and more of Baker's work.
Reasons to avoid: Its storylines are too short so it's difficult to have empathy for the characters
Laughs: A couple of chuckles
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 7/10
Did you know? Hackney Marshes is internationally known as the spiritual home of Sunday league football, with 82 football, rugby and cricket pitches on North and South Marsh and Mabley Green.
The final word. Rio Ferdinand: "I think it takes everybody back to the core, to the root, what football is as you grow up as a young kid. It is raw, it's a Sunday league pitch."
0 Response to "122. 90 Minutes; movie review"
Posting Komentar