Goal!

In the mix of all sports movies, when a movie is made for soccer, the expectations of the audience, is a thousand fold. This is because most of the Soccer Movie goers are soccer (football) fans. Football fans are not so forgiving when it comes to the football scenes. This movie captures the scenes fantastically. It shows real football. The filmmaker knows football. The stars know football. The cameramen know football.

This is independent film-making at its best. It has the main plot which is the struggle of an athlete to achieve his dream. It has side plots which involve his relationships with his father, his new found girlfriend and his grandmother. His interactions with his brother and his teammates are great. But probably the most important event of his life has to do with the lucky break he gets when a former player turned scout sees him play. From there, the dream begins for the star of the movie and the audience as well.

This movie is highly recommended.

I think we would all likely agree the "rags to riches" story has been done to death by Hollywood. But, when someone comes along and gets it right the results can be truly excellent. Perhaps the best know of this genre is original "Rocky" movie. "Goal - the dream begins" gets it right, even though it is loaded with all the clichés that generally accustom this kind of movie. "Goal" has the whole recipe here - the unknown with the heart of gold, a unique and virtuosic talent, from a downtrodden and hopeless setting, the brooding and unsupportive parent who refuses to accept his child's potential, the doting grandparent who can see the potential that lies within our hero, the outsider who promises a way to fame and fortune and so on... But, like the first few "Rocky" movies, this one delivers without falling into the usual schmaltzy pitfalls.

Kuno Becker is very well cast as promising young player Santiago Munez. He is earnest, honest, and gives off that glow of burning desire to be the best. My only knock is that he doesn't quite physically look the part at times. When they line him up with real professionals he looks a touch slight and skinny, not quite boasting the musleclature of a professional athlete. The supporting cast works out well, too. No real complaints to offer as everyone seems to be a very good fit. Alessandro Nivola's dialect could use a spot of work, but no one outside of the UK will really pick up on this. I very much liked Marcel Irues as Newcastle United's Manager. He seemed to be a totally natural fit for the role and is a shoe in for the lead if someone ever decides to make the "Aime Jacquet story".

Where this movie really takes off is on the pitch, whether its a park in LA, the training ground in Newcastle, or St. James Park, the home of Newcastle United. The soccer scenes are exceptionally well done and look realistic. Real players feature prominently all over film, both on and off the pitch, and not just in walk on cameos, ie "Bend it like Beckham". The action is convincing, the tackles are crunching, and the goals are authentic and not the usual over the top spectacle (anyone remember Pele's winner from "Victory"?) Becker fits in well with the action scenes, though it's odd how you never really see all of Becker on the ball and usually just the waist up, kind of like they found some else to do all the little flicks and stepovers...

And for all those who say "it can't happen", I beg to differ. This movie is not fantasy. In fact, they could have made a biopic about a young Calgarian from Western Canada who somehow manages to make Bayern Munich, works his way up through the reserves, and in his premier season with the senior side wins the league and European Cup, makes the England side for World Cup 2002, and returns again to be the best England player in World Cup 2006! Maybe someday someone out there will make the "Owen Hargreaves story".

All in all, great stuff and I'm already looking forward to Goal 2 & 3.

This film is basically Rocky but with a football. It's a rags-to-riches tale of a promising Mexican youngster with nothing in life, apart from incredible footballing skills.

Some of the CGI football shots are poor, but the budget for this film was not massive, and they did what they could. The use of cameos from the likes of Shearer, Zidane, Beckham and Raul added to both the credibility and believability of the overall piece.

The film is sad and at times funny, and can be enjoyed by the whole family, including people with no interest in football. It's a story of triumph over adversity, and of people pulling together to help someone get ahead in life, by doing what they do best.

Overall, this is the best football film ever made, in my opinion. You can tell that the people who made it knew their subject matter - something that simply cannot be said for Green Street (Hooligans) which concentrated on fan violence, rather than the beautiful game.

In 'Goal' Kuno Becker plays Santiago Munez, an illegal alien living in Los Angels. Despite his hardships, Santiago loves to play soccer. So much so, that he is really quite good. Good enough to get the notice of a former scout of Newcastle United. Santiago gets the opportunity to go to England and try out for this premier football team. But if he does not make it, he will not be able to return to Los Angels.

This is a heartwarming tale of one man's struggle to become something more. Despite the obstacles and the disapproval of his father (Tony Plana), he goes for the goal. Only to find that it is not going to be that easy after all.

I would say this film is 'Bend it Like Beckham' meets 'Gattaca'. Not that Santiago needs to meet any DNA tests, but he is in a world that is virtually unknown to him. He has to keep secrets about himself in order to fit in because most expect him to fail. Some will even try to make him fail.

This movie was tops! It's a great film pretty much anyone in your family could see and enjoy. The way it was released here in the States as a PG film with some scenes edited out, it's inoffensive enough. I've since gotten the DVD bootleg floating around here in New York and have seen the edited scenes. They really weren't necessary to make the film a good one (so you're not missing anything if you're only seeing the version released here in the States).

It was really nice to see less known actors in the roles. I'm personally sick and tired of the same little old crowd always getting parts in everything. It's a fantastic mixture when you can get an actor who is well known in Romania (Marcel Iures) but relatively unknown in the rest of the world and Kuno Becker (again known in Latin America but unknown to everyone else) and put them in a British film with a U.S. actor (Alessandro Nivola) along with British actors. Really clever, nice ethnic mix and an unusual one--less predictable than the usual casting that goes on out there--kinda opens the pool of actors that we're currently exposed to all the time.

A lot of people are complaining about the football (soccer) aspects of the movie saying that it's not real, etc. But I think they're failing to see that the movie is not about the sport itself (although I think there's a fair amount of that in there as well) as much as it is about the people who play it and some of the backstage politics that are linked with it. I thought these were shown tactfully and were just enough as they were coupled with the human factor --the lives of the players, their loves, their hates, competitive spirit, etc.

What was good about having a Latino as a protagonist in the film is that it shows the wider scope of fans football has. It is not only popular in Europe but in Latin America as well. The film could have easily gone down the eurocentric route of making the story about a European case, but this made it a bit more unusual and interesting. Since Santiago was an illegal immigrant who obviously took the great risk to come to the States and didn't really have much going for him here (as is the case for most illegal immigrants anyway and is becoming more and more true with the newer policies being undertaken here) his risk of going to England to try his luck there is completely plausible to me. I have actually seen similar things tried by other Latinos going to Europe to see if their luck is better there than here for obtaining residence, etc.

Some people may feel that the portrayal of the Latino family was stereotypical, but on the whole, I thought it was positive with the characters being honest and working hard for a living rather than being common hoodlums as they are sadly put forth in many films. Santiago was shown to be a modest young man who is not too full of himself and a generally likable character.