The Magnificent Eleven

The Magnificent Eleven must have been an easy sell. After the runaway success of Trainspotting, anything with writer Irvine Welsh's name on it gets the greenlight. However, this film is nothing like its dark and moody predecessor.

Trainspotting had social commentary and healthy doses of black humour. Here, we have a sort of 'London's answer to The Full Monty,' only with humour that just doesn't work.

It's about a pub football team who blag their way into getting a local Indian Restaurant to sponsor them, only to find later that the restaurant is in debt to 'the mob,' therefore they have to help them out and defend the naan bread and tikkas-to-go. Yes, as its name suggests, it's a homage to The Magnificent Seven. Whereas the cowboy film had action as its main selling point, this one has - er - not much. The humour is really weak, most of the characters are stereotypes and, although it's easy to sympathise with some of the characters who are finding it hard to find work in these times of austerity, they're just not interesting or funny enough to truly get behind.

About the only point is a spirited performance by Jenna Harrison, who comes across as suitably lovely. The rest if the cast, despite boasting some impressive British acting talent, come across as pretty bland.

However, the bottom line is, if you want some British comedy, stick to the Full Monty. If you want a cowboy film, stay with the Magnificent Seven.

I genuinely enjoyed this film. It's quirky, funny and feel-good in a way which left me with a smile on my face (especially the little cameo at the very end)...

It's not necessarily a classic like Full Monty or Brassed Off but it's the best film of this type for a long time and with a very strong cast too.

Why isn't this out there on a much wider release? It's a welcome change from the normal depressing low budget British films about knives and gangs and I would prefer to spend my evenings watching this type of quirky, clever comedy than yet another Danny Dyer wannabe running around stabbing anything that moves.

This should be getting much better promotion than it is!

Football rarely (if ever) tranfers well onto the big screen, and this is the perfect example of that.

Irvine Welsh reputedly assisted with the writing, but it's not his finest hour that's for sure.

There's little point summarising the plot, it's just not worth it. Football team, lads, shenanigans, save the club from ABC&D etc. Girls, romances, pals helping each other out, unconvincing gangsters and you get the idea.

The biggest mystery is how this ever even won a £3m budget to even get made! How did it even get distributed? It's so poor and would have been better off having been buried away like other non-event catastrophes.

Just give it a miss.

A charming UK comedy take on the classic Magnificent Seven tale and a great cast, including Sean Pertwee, Keith Allen, Gary Mavers and Robert Vaughn enliven proceedings.

A great UK low budget film with loads of familiar faces. The storyline is bit predictable but never the less good fun and it all comes together nicely at the end. It has an array of likable characters. Sean Pertwee delivers as usual and Keith Allen is pretty good to. The football scenes are realistic unlike your American soccer films, and its great to see real footballers as extras. It's makes a pleasant change to some of the recent awful UK gangster films or hooligan films like Green street. The Indians are a little stereotyped and Robert Vaughan seems to play up his part a bit. I wasn't expecting too much but was pleasantly surprised. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but if your looking for a few laughs and nothing too taxing you won't be too disappointed. It's the sort of film that would make a nice TV series.