The Brighton Miracle

It's starts a little clunky and feels a little under cooked budget wise but the story grows on you and you can't help but feel happy for the team as they transform from the easy beats to become world beaters.

I'm no rugby fan but I never once felt like I wasn't interested in the outcome.

The message is the thing here and while it feels a little preachy and lacking a touch of comic relief, I found it a moving and believable portrayal of sporting life and achievement in general.

The way the film cuts between the real people interviews and the recreation scenes works better than I would have imagined they could.

I'm a rugby fan and Eddie is one of the more interesting individuals in sport so I enjoyed it somewhat anyway. But I didn't think it was really that well scripted and I thought it was odd that there was no mention of Eddie's wife and daughter. He was 55 when that all took place and yet they concentrated entirely on his parents and their influence. Overall it was a bit clunky and obvious. Kind of TV movie stuff.

This low budget Australian movie tells the story of the Japanese preparation for the 2015 Rugby World Cup and their victory over rugby powerhouse South Africa. Filmed entirely in Australia it is a beautiful example of telling a story with little money.

Basically, the acting is okay, the cinematography is minimal except where the cinematographer or director insisted that they needed a 360 shot to prove their skills, and the acting is good enough.

But what makes this stand out is that it is a great story. Using interviews with real people it comes across as a documentary where the reenactment scenes took over the film and it became a movie.

Well worth watching.

I enjoyed it but felt it didn't do the subject justice. The game of the movie title was squeezed in last few minutes but didnt in any way capture the sense of underdog and massive support Japan won. I watched that game and remember the excitement of watching an historic win against all odds. How did this happen and was it just hard work and focus. I think there is more to it and Eddie is far from the one dimensional and humourless operator presented here.

But even badly told its an interesting story and fascinating how an individual can inspire performance. Glad it got made even if not all it could have been. Maybe have another go with a movie of Eddie being picked for the england coach and what he had to contend with on and off the field. The Japan job may have been a training run for the politics of England and basket case he inherited.

I'm a big fan of that great romantic hero, the underdog who overcomes the odds and the obstacles to achieve the goal, to emerge victorious.

In that sense, The Brighton Miracle certainly does not disappoint. Still, that's not enough to warrant a 10/10 rating.

What I found to be unique, artistic, edgy and utterly creative was the way they blended the real world people with their dramatized versions, especially the most challenging: Eddie Jones and Michael Leitch. The movie moved seamlessly between the brilliant acting of Temuera Morrison and Lasarus Ratuere, and the commentary of their real life counterparts, slaughtering yet another sacred cow of cinema (the other sacred cow that was recently slaughtered was that of mixing real actors with animated characters). That wasn't just true for those two; the entire supporting cast made me a believer in the exact same way.

Conceptually, I "knew" when I was watching an actor act and speak lines vis à vis when the "real" person was sharing their commentary. At the same time, however, on a much deeper level, I was always aware, I always recognized that the persona I was watching in either case was one and the same. They merged to form something greater than logic: Myth.

That, in my opinion, is the measure of a true work of art. 10/10