A movie about an amateur soccer team, why would I ever want to see that? Even though about 95% of the male population loves to watch the game weekend after weekend, I'm not interested in it at all. And I've never been interested in it. That's also why I was one of the few boys who wasn't in a soccer team at the age of six. Most fathers push their sons to become the next Ronaldo, Pele or Raul, hoping that they will make their own 'dream career' come true, but I didn't care about that at all (neither did my father by the way). Still, I gave this movie a try, but only because this was a Belgian movie. In my opinion there aren't enough movies made over here (especially not when you see how they do it in other European countries), and I feel like we should support every little effort that has been made to do something about that problem.
"Team Spirit" tells the story of an amateur soccer team. The players know each other since childhood and have been friends ever since, although they don't really have anything else in common except for their interest in soccer. But now that they are about to play their 500th match, they don't know if they still want to continue with the team. They are all thinking about starting a family or already have one, they've got a job that takes a lot of their time,... And if that isn't all enough, they all have their own private problems which also affects their way (or sometimes the lack ) of thinking in a very drastic way.
I know that this movie has been shot with a very small budget and that's why I will not say that this is an awful movie. It's far from a masterpiece, but Jan Verheyen probably got the best out of it and made it a watchable movie. Still, there were a couple of things that annoyed me enough to notice them and to write them down in this review. One of those things is the appearance of all those so-called famous people who all had to make a guest appearance in this movie (I'm pretty sure that outside Flanders, no-one has ever heard of them, but they were probably put in it to draw a larger crowd). Was that really necessary? Ilse De Meulemeester was still OK, but all the others should have stayed out of it. There are enough actresses who could have played those roles and probably even better than what we got to see now. Another thing that bothered me was the obvious sponsoring: when they were drinking a beer the brand was quite obvious, the sponsors on the shirt weren't a coincidence either,... Those are cheap tricks that never should be used in a movie, not even when it hasn't got a big budget.
Still, not everything about this movie was bad. The acting by the good and rather famous actors was more than OK. Tom Van Landuyt, Michael Pas, Axel Daeseleire,... were all very enjoyable, although it was Dimitri Leue who really was the best in my opinion. But they just weren't able to save this entire movie. The story was OK, although the 'emotional' scenes (the old images of the young boys, the death of Franky's dad,...) looked rather cheap and unbelievable, making this a movie that is worth a watch, but nothing more than that.
There is absolutely nothing exceptional or great about this movie and that's a shame. It just couldn't live up to the hype that was created around it. Jan Verheyen always complains that he doesn't get enough money to make a great film. Possible, but in my opinion he just isn't the greatest director we have. Even when he has the budget, I don't think he will ever be able to make a really exceptional movie. I give this movie a rating between 6/10 and 6.5/10.
