The Magnificent Eleven

Cowboys, Indians, Bandits.

Good versus the bad. Indian restaurant and arranged marriage cliché.

Drunk man and failing marriage cliché.

Keith Allen in man not letting go of youth via 70s car cliché.

Pretty girl and Indian boy not supposed to get together but so alarmingly better looking than rest of cast it was inevitable cliché.

Crap Full Monty nude 11 men detained in bus cliché.

Crap fight scene rendering entire build up a laughing stock.

Gary Linnekar.

Avoid. It is poop. It was not good. Avoid.

I found myself watching The Magnificent Eleven as I'm binging on all the remakes of Seven Samurai (1954) and this is certainly the oddest.

That's right this 2013 British made football themed movie is remake of 1954's Japanese made samurai movie! Who would have thought it?

Starring Sean Pertwee, Keith Allen and a very tired looking Robert Vaughn this movie was at an immediate disadvantage with me.

I tend to dislike UK cinema and I hate football, so what chance did it stand really?

Telling the story of a small football team who seek sponsorship from a local indian restaurant and how it gets them into a spot of bother with the local crime syndicate.

I have to say it's not what I expected at all. For a start this is in no universe a remake of Seven Samurai, I don't know how in the blue hell they can justify that. Second the football is a side theme and the movie doesn't climax in a football game like you'd assume, it goes in a different direction and is all the better for it.

A distinctly average film from a genre I dislike that comes out better than expected mostly due to a great finale.

Better than it by all rights should have been and does NOT deserve the critical reception it seems to have recieved.

The Good:

Great finale

Strong cast

The Bad:

Robert Vaughn should have retired by this point, I loved the man but here he demonstrates that he should have been putting his feet up

Still a football movie at its core

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I entirely approve of Gary Linker having a mute disguised role

Keith Allen has considerably more talent than his daughter could dream of

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.

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!

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.