United Passions

"On June 5, 2015, the film made its North American premiere at 10 movie theaters in New York, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Washington D. C., Kansas City, Miami, Minneapolis, Dallas, Houston, and Philadelphia. It grossed $319."

The above quote is from the IMDB trivia section on this film. Additionally, the film ended up losing pretty much all the money spent to make it! But, at the same time, the film is reasonably entertaining and features a pretty amazing cast, such as Gerard Depardieu, Tim Roth and Sam Neill. It also features some nice scenes of Paris circa 1930 as well as come great location shots. So what is the problem with this movie?

Well, the problem is that the film is a tribute to the wonderfulness of FIFA, the international body that governs and oversees football (soccer to us Americans). So why is this a problem? Well, the film came out just after FIFA and its leaders were embroiled in a scandal and arrests were made for bribery and more! So, it's not too surprising that revenues were down for the film. But the problem goes much deeper than this. Apparently most of the cost to make the film was actually provided by FIFA...making this essentially a propaganda film...probably made to try to distract the public from FIFA's legal troubles. And, the public seems to have realized this and they stayed away from the movie in droves! It also didn't help that the film not only talks about the early days of FIFA and the first World Cup but then jumps ahead to today...extolling FIFA's virtues but NEVER seriously addressing the scandals...many of which had broken well before the film debuted! And, sadly, some of the folks the film seems to applaud are those who were later sanctioned by FIFA for fraud.

If you completely ignore the propaganda aspects of the movie, I must admit that it's reasonably entertaining...though a bit sterile and uninvolving. It really lacks heart and warmth and the characters seem more like caricatures much of the time. But purely for the look of the film and SOME of the acting, I'm giving it a 3. It's not all that good and is an apparent attempt to distract the public...but it's not 100% bad as you watch the movie.

Like many others, if I am honest, I decided to watch this film not with the thought of "this might be good" but rather "this might be awful". I did try as much as I could to put it to one side, but with FIFA it is really hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, and indeed, with the accusations about the ethics report (clearing them totally of any wrong-doing regarding Qatar), it is difficult to come to the film just keen to meet it on an open field with no preconceptions. It was additionally hard to put the ethics report and the many other terrible things they do out of my mind, when the film kept reminding me that really it was just yet another in a long line of spin, defiance, arrogance, and being frankly up themselves.

It is technically well made; the crowd effects green-screen are the only obvious weak spot in the production values that are obvious, and otherwise it seems that at least those technical people have been able to make the film look and sound as it should. So if your own requirement is that the cinematography, sound, location management, and other such things are good, then this film will please you. Unfortunately this is not where most viewers will have their issues.

Much bile has been directed at the cast for taking part, but the real blame must be laid at the writer Deflino and the writer/ director Auburtin because fundamentally the film is a mess in terms of broad narrative and specific dialogue. Perhaps they had other forces at play with their drafts, but whatever happened the film is really something to behold. Starting with the plot, there is no central driving force to the film apart from simply the passage of time. The ending of the film is Blatter getting re-elected and the 2010 world cup going to South Africa; why? Why is this the end? Indeed what was the plot? It trudges through history with little drama, little interest, and really nothing to make you watch apart from how ham-fisted so much of it is. There is really no plot here – just a series of events that occur, few of them in any way interesting. But if it were only this, perhaps it would be okay – but it is not.

Looking at the film is regard to specific scenes or dialogue what we get is a film trying to brush away the perception of FIFA – even if it means making the film version of themselves be in stark contrast to the reality. It is clear whoever added such things knew the public accusations very well, and the film tackles them throughout – but does so in the most clumsy and obvious manner. The unrelated football match that we keep flashing to is the main thing – happy multi-cultural children playing the game for love, with a key focus on the female player. We also get Rimet quick to correct a man being racist and sexist, or Blatter tackling those within FIFA who appear to be corrupt. My personal favorite is the line said by Blatter "we should be concentrating on the women's game"; this made in rewind in disbelief that such a line would be written when really the most well-known position he has ever taken on that is that they should wear more feminine garb – particularly "tighter shorts for example". The film seems to have lots of this sort of revisionism when it comes to Blatter – even making a point of having a scene where he says hello to a cleaner by name.

There is lots of this clumsiness in revisionist history and point scoring; the British in particular are mocked for really no narrative reason. To be fair to the film, the role of sponsorship, money, and internal politics is covered, but it is not explored so much as just mentioned, and what really sticks in the mind is what isn't covered or what appears to be being spun. The cast get paid and go home – little else can be said. Depardieu and Roth are both good actors, so for them to stand in front of a camera and say words is not bother – as such they do functional jobs, but looking at their effort it is pretty clear that this was their version of Michael Caine's Jaws IV ("I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific"). Sam Neill is wonderfully bad in it – despite playing a Brazilian, he cannot get rid of his Peaky Blinders Northern Irish accent, and as result he has bits of that coming in all the time – along with loads of other accents that don't work either. Supporting cast is roundly so-so – nobody is terrible, it is just they have nothing to do, and even the best of them cannot sell this script.

United Passions is not as terrible as many viewers would have liked it to have been – but it is really poor nonetheless. There is really no narrative thread worth mentioning, but worse than this is the terrible attempts to rewrite even recent history, with scenes and lines of dialogue that have so clearly been dropped in for no other purpose than to pretend that the opposite is not true (which of course it is). The film's only actual purpose could be argued to be that it stands as testament to FIFA's self-indulgent arrogance – however even on that front there are so many other, better examples of this, that really even for that one does not need this dry wreck of a film.

You know all those great sports movies about the underdogs and their fight to overcome incredible odds and still win? Yeah, this movie isn't one of those. It's a movie by a sports organization full of shady people about how not shady they are. There, it's like you just watched it.

FIFA has full reigns of this production and used it to make themselves seem like the bestest people in the world, which sounds ridiculous considering all of the scandals they are involved in. As previous reviewers have said, this smells a lot like propaganda. I guess you could enjoy it if you either 1. are a desperate fan boy/girl of anything related to football, or 2. an employee of FIFA contractually obligated to like it.

As a final note, you know a movie is bad when the IMDb tag line sounds sarcastic.

United Passions is a glorified corporate pat on the back made by FIFA that masquerades as a movie.

It has attracted stars such as Gerard Depardieu and Tim Roth.

The story is thin as it traces the rise of FIFA from characters such as Carl Hirschmann and Robert Guérin who were involved in its creation. The idea laughed out by the snooty British who had a more colonial and chauvinistic attitude to football.

Under Jules Rimet (Gerard Dépardieu) the third president of FIFA, the notion was put forward for holding the World Cup tournament, first held in Uruguay. The decision to hold in Italy under fascist Mussolini attracted critics.

João Havelange (Sam Neill) cultivated supported from Africa and Asia, attracted corporate sponsorship and boosted FIFA's coffers. Treating FIFA as his own personal fiefdom with constant allegations of and financial corruption under his watch.

Sepp Blatter (Tim Roth) is the embattled successor of Havelange. Determined to broaden football to a truly global sport played in all continents and by allsexes and ages. The final scene is South Africa being chosen to hold the 2010 World Cup.

Of course by the time the film was released, Blatter and other FIFA bigwigs had faced arrest for bribery and money laundering. Decades if financial corruption had come home to roost and there was nothing this film could do to whitewash it.

The film is technically well made but it is all rather pointless. Some British film critics were hard on the movie, the Brits who claim to have invented football appear as caricatures and FIFA did has not selected England as a World Cup venue since 1966.

Stanley Rous the British head of FIFA who preceded Havelange was lightly dealt with in my opinion. His regime bent over backwards trying to include apartheid South Africa in FIFA and in the World Cup. You can see how Havelange easily played him by courting black Africa.

A film about FIFA, an organisation which is renowned for corruption and skulduggery, finances a film about itself. This should get the alarm bells sounding immediately. The basic plot is simple, football commences as a global sport, FIFA creates itself to manage this new international phenomenon. FIFA is amazing. The end. This is a film about an organisation in which corruption is rife, which pays no taxes, yet has 'billions' in its bank accounts, and which forces countries which win the bidding to host the World Cup to their change laws. FIFA were even allowed to edit the script to their choosing. If you like watching propaganda, then this is the film for you. Otherwise, I suggest that it is given a wide birth.

It's very strange that the one person here who has written a 10 star review only joined IMDb 2 weeks ago and must have done just to write a heavily biased review for this film.