Anelka: Der Missverstandene

It was very watchable. But i found the voice overs / narrations very off putting. I understand even though most people could speak English fluently they chose to skeak in their native tongue, no problem. But why not have their voices narrated in english by French voice actors with french accents.

Coincidentally, I watched this right after I finished The Last Dance. Both documentaries covered successful athletes but there was also a lot of drama. Both men had similar personalities. I don't know how to put this, but when I watched MJ's story I saw a true team player. Whereas in this documentary I thought Anelka was a capricious athlete always clashing with his managers. I do get the part that he was unfairly treated for 2010 World Cup scandal, but overall I just thought some of his behavior was a bit too much for a team player.

Besides this, story line is a bit dull and superficial. Most of the documentary is like I did this and that. I didn't deserve this etc. There was nothing much about emotions of players in a team environment or some sort of a connection.

Everything set aside, I did enjoyed watching him play back in the day. I think this documentary doesn't make the cut for him. Also, if you haven't watched The Last Dance I strongly recommend it.

Why there wasn't any scenes from Turkey ? There was a quite short one It would have better to talk about the missed Turkish Super League title at last game while he was playing for Fenerbahce

I never followed Nicolas Anelka's career with a lot of attention, but he's the kind of player who was always on your radar if you cared about football during the 2000s. His reluctance to be a superstar is supposed to explain the drama he brought wherever he played, but a documentary that sides so definitively with its subject is bound to feel unsatisfying in the end.

The first half of the movie is a well structured presentation/self-portrait of Anelka the player and Anelka the man, a complicated character who can, indeed, be easily judged as flippant and arrogant. The second half becomes mired in director Eric Hannezo's efforts to stick to his "misunderstood" subtitle, at the cost of sacrificing the documentary's chronology. That's why more controversial events of Anelka's career are brought forward, time spent at various clubs is conspicuously compressed or wholly ignored, and the story concludes on France's scandalous 2010 representation at the World Cup, with Anelka in the limelight.

In many ways, it feels like Anelka is a version of Ibrahimovic that was disliked. The documentary offers little insight as to why that might be, beyond pointing fingers at the media and managers, with some of the better insights coming from former Arsenal honcho, Arsene Wenger. So while there are definitely interesting facets to Hannezo's docu, the numerous exculpations make for a less than engaging watch, leaving too much unsaid - or unasked.

The documentary tries to rehabilitate Nicolas Anelka by explaining successively: that he is a good father, that the ten or so tangles with his coaches are never his fault, that he does not have the appetite for profit despite his entourage who put pressure on the 15 clubs he went through. In the end, the documentary does not do good to his image, sporting and humanely. To convince you (spoiler) watch how he addresses his son who has just returned from soccer training, humiliating him.

In short: a biased documentary that is counterproductive if you want to save Anelka's image. Definitely a great player, sadly not a team player with stable mentality.

This reminds me of The Last Dance with Michael Jordan, while Jordan did achieve a lot of things. Anelka's greatest achievement will be his ability to create noises around him.