Best - Jogando Com O Destino

Best is a very very boring film. There isn't any reason to watch it: even if you like football you are not interested in this character (I mean just the movie character, not the real George Best). You can't understand, during the film, the reason of his alcohol addiction, of his rebellion to every rules... So this George Best looks like a dumb guy, a star without a brain, able just to throw away all he owns.

Even the other characters are just masks: the good trainer and the bad trainer, the girl who tries to exploit him and the football player who hates him just because he is, above all, the best.

I think that both writers and director thought that would be very simple make a movie from a famous and scandalous football player as George Best, but movies are different from real life. It's not enough saying: things went this way. You might create something different...

I hope to see, soon, a good film about football.

As George Best has said, it is always difficult translating a sportsman's life to film, and this is no exception. In fact, the viewer needs to know the story of Best first to be able to follow the quick changes in character. We see George Best arriving in Manchester as a naive kid, experiencing a rapid rise to stardom, and just as swift a decline into alcoholic stupor, but without any idea of why. John Lynch co-wrote the script but seems all wrong for the charismatic Best. He remains sombre throughout, even when the team are on top. Ian Bannen gives a solid reading, in one of his last roles, as team manager Matt Busby, but again, the part is unlightening about his relationship with George. Of the supporting cast, I can only single out Linus Roache who is remarkably like the real Best teammate Denis Law, in speech and mannerisms.

The picture does have a lot of digitally retouched football footage, adding the actors into the action, but it is often shown from odd angles that lessen the impact. Why didn't they just use the actual players for these sequences ?

So, this joins the list of disappointing sporting lifes. Better to watch a documentary about the man instead to see the real magic.

Being a Man United fan probably makes me a bit biased on the subject of George Best.Hence the views expressed herein would not befit those going to watch a film to entertain them.

Although the movie's attempt has been made to please audiences with no taste for the game of football(soccer)it still has a fair amount of jargon on the game.I am afraid that someone in the States or any other country which football is not prominent or not as popular will never have heard of Manchester United least George Best.

In the film we are taken in a roller coaster ride with the life of the very famous Irish lad,Best.Since he arrived at Old Trafford to his last days in the club.At first the film gives you the impression it will show you what made him a legend in his field but slowly we are dragged into his persona and feel as drunk as he is.The overall view of the movie is actually making you sense what the man went through in a life of turmoil and confusion but soon has you displaced somewhere between limbo and Vodka.The acting is slow at times with John Lynch(George Best) as baffled as the part he is playing.Its only when we catch Ian Bannen(Sir Mat Busby)in a scene, that the plot all of a sudden comes alive with some rationality.The direction is erratic at times and we are moved from scene to scene at a hectic pace not really knowing what year all these events are unfolding.Its only those who know the history of the club that have an idea.But as expounded before, Mary McGuckian tries not to indulge the cinema goer with anything to do with the game,only to illustrate what made George Best tick inside.

All in all a poor attempt to portray a living legend without actually showing good coverage of the sport he excelled in.The glimpses we catch him playing,albeit well camouflaged with real shots of Best from afar and close shots of Lynch,are few to analogue his rise and fall.Its only when we see the real thing that we can understand what a genius Best was.

5/10 rating for Best. 10/10 for George Best

You have to be thankful for small favours, so I am thankful for having seen the original version of this movie, 'cos I'm sure an Italian dubbing would have accomplished the hard feat of making this movie worse. First, the lack of continuity is so big it jumps (and dances) in front of you: how come Best's accent is so strong at the beginning and almost gone near the end? how come he arrives in Manchester has a teenager and three years later looks fortyish? This movie lacks rhythm, it doesn't have a story and doesn't go anywhere. This movie lacks insight: we are told the life of a man who was good at football and who one day starts drinking, gambling and womanizing out of the blue. We await for an explanation of any kind, but to no avail. However, Best is portrayed as a "poor victim": a victim of what? Of the fact that someone gave him big money to run around a ball? Please!!! This movie lacks acting, so badly it hurts: only Ian Bannen delivers, but he has to put with lines from an alternative version of the "Symposium" that make him sound like a cheesy Socrates (the philosopher, not the footballer). A particular shame in this department must be bestowed upon females. I would not dare saying "female characters": Sophie Dahl is better than Patsy Kensit (go figure!); the latter would have found it easy to play this role, since she's been married to a lame imitator of Best's excesses (a Gallagher, in case you didn't know), but she can't even draw from personal experience. This movie lacks football, and it lacks it a great deal: if I knew nothing about this sport I would find the "coreographed scenes" ridiculous. Also, why re-enact famous matches only to film them with a 1960's-telly effect?

For this, and many more reasons, this movie lacks directing. It looks as if it's been directed by a large group of people who don't speak to each other, and it feels like a long bad tv commercial (what about that Irish choir?). Oh, and about the music, I haven't seen a single British movie that didn't feature "Come up and see me" by Steve Harley/Cockney Rebel: can some charity up there ship some new music to British Filmmakers? I don't want to go on forever, but the re-enacted scenes are another shame of this movie: you get actors filmed with a lousy filter and then pasted over an 80s (or 70s or 60s) background: it doesn't make sense, and it totally sucks. Like this whole movie.

Dissapointing telling of Georges life. It is just montages of him being drunk interwoven with his skills on the footy field. No character is really explored, we see Bobby Charlton recounting the Munich disaster, but that is as far as any characterisation goes. Decent performances, especially Lynch as when he plays the older George Best. The film is not Man United, more like Luton Town Reserves. Shame because it could of been so much more.