The Pass

Russell Tovey plays Jason who is with his team mate Ade (Arinze Kene) in a hotel room in Romania on the night before a big game. They spend the night talking of dreams, the chances they may take and horsing around just this side of being overtly homoerotic.

The air is crackling with sexual tension and then the story moves on into the future and that is where it gets very interesting and quite deep. To say more would ruin the plot. Now this is essentially a play in three acts and it could easily be staged. The cast is minimal and that means that everyone has to be on top form and they all are. Tovey has to carry most scenes but he is ably supported by the others involved.

This is a gay based film but it is not a bedroom fest but does feature a fair bit of nakedness but not the Full Monty type either. This is a film for those who like a very human story and have an interest in why so few football professional players have ever come out of the very packed footie closet.

The 4 actors in this movie are better than a lot of those main stream actors praised by the media. The plot is so meaningful that reflects the lives o at least 3 of the best football players in our generation, because if they come out, they are done. The movie is not "claustrophobic", the rooms reflect how they have to live their intimate life, in a box. But for the unsophisticated "revivers", most likely either homophobic or the type who can only post negative views - reflecting what they feel inside - did not get the main message of the movie: Power - Shame - Insecurity Societal and Professional Homophobic rules -and bad choices that can all lead to deep unhappiness and misery.

Great movie, great actors, great story but sad and reflective of how unfair life can be.

I really enjoyed the movie and the acting was great. The way it portrayed the range of emotions in the different relationships were very poignant and authentic. Russell Tovey was amazing and gave a layered performance. Arinze Kene should definitely be given more roles in the future. I hope UK cinema realizes what they have before he is forced to go to the US for work.

This was such a pleasant surprise. I truly did not know anything other than this being an LGBT- film, and boy was it more than that. It's not exactly an LGBT romance film, and surely not one of a couple blossoming. Instead, it's a quiet heavy and quiet dark character study of one broken man. Arinzé Kene is very good and I hope this helps him get more roles, but it's truly Russell Tovey's film and he delivers. I thought he was quite good in Looking, but I never knew he would be possible of the deeper places he goes to here. It's an incredibly performance that should stand as one of the year's best.

Russell Tovey and Arinzé Kene are two young football players on the verge of having bigger careers when they share a hotel room the night before a big game. The titular moment happens, and then we see the fallout five and then ten years later in two different hotel rooms.

I was struck by the large disparity between how much I wanted to like this film and how little I really did. It was adapted by John Donnelly from his successful play, and it's one of the most clear "adapted from a play" films I have seen with three equal length acts involving a couple of people standing in small rooms and talking. It's a film where I really liked it's overall arc, but didn't really enjoy much of what it took to get there.

It does have a truly heroic amount of very ripped, shirtless men, so that will add an extra element for many viewers.