Football

The short shows a young baby's first interaction with a ball and follows his obsession through his early years until secondary school. The passing of the years are shown by the matches played on the TV - from Maradona's "hand of god" to Owen's wonderful goal against Argentina in France 98.

This starts well, opening with a list of statistics about jobs - 400 boys want to be traffic wardens, 4000 want to be policemen etc, building to 4,000,000 want to be footballers. It then starts with Midge as a baby and goes from their. However the action of the majority of the film is just following Midge as he kicks the ball in his room and then dribbles round streets and eventually gets into trouble at school. However there doesn't seem to be any point to it - at the end we see another 3 year old starting the same trend, the point being only 11 boys can make it onto the pitch, but by then there have been ample opportunities to make other points.

The cast are OK. Bonham Carter should be cheered for giving her time and her fame to shorts like this, indeed she is the main speaking character here. She's amusing and a good character but even she doesn't have much to do. There's no faulting Sam Williams' skill with a ball and it's interesting to watch just to see him move, but he doesn't really have a character.

Overall, it's interesting but it doesn't seem to have any point other than a very basic observation. The best reason for watching it is to relive Owen's great goal in France 98. Other than that, it doesn't have much to say.

I've seen some great, important short films; those by Svankmajer and Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou" are fantastic radical cinema. This recent effort, which I came across one late night on British television, is a very minor film, which makes, as the previous reviewer says, a very obvious point. That football is effectively the religion of so many, from an early age onwards. Does it need a film, a film with no other real raison d'etre, to state this *truism*?

There's no real comment or anything, or character, just images reflecting a liking for football in various settings. Nothing in this film really sank in, perhaps bar the image of Helena Bonham Carter making herself look a little silly. Again we have the actress in "Fight Club"-alike anti-type mode; increasingly alluring yes, but that's about all one can say about her brief appearance here. What was she doing in this film? I obviously agree with Boo the Moo that it's good to see her doing a British short film, but surely she ought to have appeared in a more interesting one...!

Anyway, this is a pointless short, a waste of (barely) seven minutes, if such a thing is possible.

Rating:- **/*****