Football fever has well and truly gripped the planet and... insert heavy handed joke about Coronavirus here... with Euro 2020 kicking off a year later than planned offering a very nice distraction to all the horrible nonsense that's been going on for the last 15 months. Given that I am still receiving counselling after subjecting myself to Race 3 last week, categorically maybe the worst movie I've covered on this blog yet (and it has some stiff competition) and the first movie I genuinely wanted to switch off before the end, I thought I would play into the football theme this week and I randomly selected Golden Shoes because it was the one with the most awful looking thumbnail on Netflix.
The movie opens with a dazzling display of footballing ability from Cristiano Ronaldo (Cristiano Ronaldo) who technically now earns himself a credit in this movie... before panning to Christian Larou (Christian Koza) who celebrates a goal for his team, Portugal I assume, with one of the most lukewarm celebrations I think I've ever seen and then demonstrates the goal to his mum (Dina Meyer), smashing a window in the process, but she doesn't seem to be bothered for... some reason... anyway, Christian then goes to 'soccer' practice with two really obnoxious twins who I didn't bother to learn the names of, and their equally as slimy and obnoxious Dad; Frank (Eric Roberts), where until now he has been the ball boy, but when the opportunity to play in the team lands in his lap thanks to Coach Dominic (David DeLuise)... nothing remarkable happens. Wow. Then we have a bit where I assume Christian's Dad is in the field of battle, he's in the Army, and they're under attack... anyway back to football and in backyard practice, Christian demonstrates to the fat kid stereotype and goalkeeper Julian (Aedin Mincks) that he can't hit a cows backside with a banjo which upsets his neighbour who appears to be obsessed with flowers. Later at a game Christian gets an opportunity at play, coming on as a substitute but... doesn't do anything particularly special. I will give this movie it's due; it's certainly not going down the 'miraculous wonderkid comes out of nowhere and is suddenly amazingly good at this particular talent' kind of angle... then we have more army stuff and it looks like Christian's dad is a goner... Christian's mum gets a phone call advising her that her husband is MIA which leads to her having a car accident and putting her in hospital, hey that's what happens when you use a mobile phone at the wheel! Leaving Christian in the care of creepy Frank who kept hitting on his mum. Frank takes Christian to get some new football boots, and by get he means literally convince the store to give Christian a pair of old, dirty, muddy ones they were going to throw away... and at practice later that day Christian plays like an absolute superstar! Suddenly the boots are less muddy and scruffy and Christian gets a chance to play a whole half of football (which is 45 minutes, not half hour movie...) and he bangs in like 4 goals (but for some reason they forget to update the scoreboard...) and nets a place as the team striker attracting attention from the local press as he does. Frank continues to act like a penis and treats Christian like shit whilst Coach Dominic makes a call to arrange for his pal, and national youth team scout, Mitch (the guy playing him isn't important enough to mention in the cast apparently) to attend their next game and scout Christian, which he does and seems... mildly impressed? I'm not sure... Practising back home Christian takes off the old boots and, trying on a newer pair, discovers he can't play as well, and all this under the covert gaze of pervy Frank. After the game, Christian again shining and leading his team to victory, Frank tries to steal Christian's magic shoes but is almost caught just as Christian comes downstairs to go to bed, which leads to Christian actually sleeping in the shoes to stop creepy Frank from nicking them... Christian's football skills work their way up all the way to the office of the President of the United States (yes, really) and Mr. President himself goes on television to reveal that after some personal intervention the military have found Christian's dad who is alive and he will be going home! It's the day of the regional finals, but that utter fucking dickhead Frank has locked Christian in the basement! However the flower obsessed neighbour hears Christian's cries for help, and breaks him out, revealing that he used to play soccer when he was younger. Christian finally makes it to the big game but without his gold boots, but after a pep talk from the coach he goes on to score 2 goals winning his side the tournament and gets an invite to the national youth side by scout Mitch. At the close of the movie, Christian's parents are re-united, seemingly missing the entire game but making it in time to celebrate with Christian and punch Frank square in the face for good measure.
I picked this, literally on whim because I wanted to cover a football related movie this week and knew nothing about this movie going in, but it's clear it was produced on a shoestring budget (pun 100% intended) and has low budget stitched through it like a counterfeit football. There were some real uncomfortable parts in this movie, uncomfortable for the wrong reasons, not the right ones, but there were also parts that it got right and got right well. However it was painfully sabotaged by it's cheap production values, phoney, dialled in dialogue and ropey, questionable acting.
One of things I really hate about movies that focus around a child main lead is when the script and narrative purposely plays up the child stars as thinking, speaking and acting like adults. And this movie didn't necessarily lean on that alot but there were moments where Christian spoke to his fellow players, and some of the players to him like they were about 10-15 years older than they actually were. And that's not just me as an old lad banging on about kids today, they talked like they were adults, referencing stuff that only adults would know about. It's a lazy, cheap troupe, sometimes played out for comedic effect but I hate it. Thankfully it wasn't written throughout this film but it was there in patches and it damaged the movie.
Also the soundtrack was dreadful, and sounded like it was knocked up in an hour by somebody with basic access to simple tracking software. Christian is having heart to heart with mum over missing his dad and this really whimsical, jovial music is playing?! It was just completely illfitting and the same themed music played throughout the entire film; just that whimsical sounding string chorus. It torpedoed any hopes this movie had of shining beyond it's production values. It would have been better not to have any soundtrack at all and go down the route of being gritty and realistic than stick with the music they stuck with. I guess they were trying to drive home the whole 'inspirational story' narrative but at best it was un-necessary and at it's worst it was downright confusing.
I don't wanna rag on the acting too much but the only one person who really stood out was Eric Roberts as absolute bellend Frank who I genuinely wanted to see tortured horribly and painfully by the closing 15 minutes of the movie, his character was genuinely detestable made all the more convincing by his acting in the role I guess, so he did well.
The others, not so much. I thought Christian Koza as Christian Larou was painfully wooden in places and that he was really struggling with the dialogue and emotional depth his character was demanding. Everybody else was so perfectly stereotypical that they slotted in with their average performances and with the exception of Eric Roberts, was nothing to write home about. Not that any of the other characters really had any fleshing out, but here we are.
There was also some pretty obvious use of green screen going on here, and again those low budget hallmarks were all too visible. It looks like a lot of the film was shot in studio with locations added in afterwards and it kills any creditability a movie might have before it. Some of it was partially understandable, but some of it I felt like they didn't even try. The final scenes with Christian, and his parents were almost certainly shot against a green screen but yet the final football match looks like it was shot in a proper stadium? Couldn't you use the same location to film that last 2 minute bit? At it's worst it was ugly and amateur, at it's best they did an almost passable job at being convincing but not very much so.
So these mega own goals accounted for, where this movie got things right, it got them right well. Despite being limited on dialogue the movie genuinely built up the emotional moments pretty decently and when it tugged at the heart strings, I at least felt... something... which y'know is good, cos that's what they're going for. And they at least had the good grace to make this about football and not get side tracked by some ridiculous sub-plot like Frank being the sponsor of the team and threatening to pull funding, or Christian's dad being in the army. And Christian at least looked like he could play football, and play it well. He just maybe has some work to do on acting, and now you have me insulting a child, movie?! Is this what it's come to?!
It's full time, the dust has settled, we've had 90 minutes, and the final result is an embarrassing performance for Golden Shoes. Whilst it's clear they had the heart and vision, an obvious lack of funding was evident from the performance and a few ridiculous own goals did nothing to rescue the game from danger. Combine this with a red card for the soundtrack department, a niggling injury to the teams star performer and an obvious complete lack of tactics, and the result was a disappointing defeat for the home side barely scrapping a single star out of five before limping back to the dressing room.
