(Dir. Steve Barron. Cast: Ricky Tomlinson, Amanda Redman, Bradley Walsh, Philip Jackson, Pele)
Football movies are generally not that well regarded. ESCAPE TO VICTORY is often held up as an unintentionally funny rip-off of THE GREAT ESCAPE whilst WHEN SATURDAY COMES struck a lot of people as a not very interesting kitchen sink drama with some penalty-spot action tacked on.
By contrast, this review is going to start from the slighly controversial premise that football movies are actually great, especially those two forgotten classics ESCAPE TO VICTORY and WHEN SATURDAY COMES. Whilst not a popular view,
MIKE BASSETT is a mockumentary in finest SPINAL TAP tradition. It follows the career as England Manager of Mike Bassett (Tomlinson), an old-fashioned tactically naive footballing dinosaur elevated to the top job by default. Bassett inherits a precarious world cup qualifying position, and through his own ineptitude considerably worsens the situation. Luckily, in a manner not dissimilar from Kevin Keegan's Euro 2000 qualification campaign (and even Sven Goran Eriksson's recent World Cup qualification success), results elsewhere go England's way so they end up in the finals anyhow. Then, a series of disastrous performances in Brazil, combined with a drunken display in the hotel bar, leave Bassett's position on a knife edge...
Wisely, this movie tries to be topical, but not that topical. There are no real English players featured, and no sly references to anyone not instantly recogniseable to viewers with even the vaguest interest in football. True, Pele appears as himself, but even those totally disinterested in the game have heard of him. Likewise, the lampooning of Gazza as personified by gifted midfield enigma "Tonka" Tonkinson is not likely to meet with too many blank looks of incomprehesion. Bassett himself is a character in his own right, recognizeable as a type, but not specifically as any past manager. So, for instance he doesn't go into any Graham Taylor-esque "Do I not like that" rants, nor Hoddle-like tirades against the disabled, nor even Keegan-inspired cool-losing moments of the "I'd love it if we beat them. Love it!!!" variety. Instead, at Bassett's moment of crisis, as progression past the group stages looks impossible, we get quite a touching rendition of Kipling's "If...". Great news for Rudyard's publishers, if Auden's post FOUR WEDDINGS popularity is anything to go by, but also a good cinematic moment in its own right and testament to Tomlinson's real and endearing talent as an actor.
The most important test of any comedy is the laugh-factor, and this is extremely healthy throughout. A lot of the jokes really hit home, and there are several moments that are positively inspired. There are more obscure pleasures to be had too, such as satisifaction at Amanda Redman's excellent turn as Mrs Bassett and incredulity that London's Burning star turned convicted coke dealer John Alford makes his comeback in a small role here. The structure, though, finally causes the film to come unstuck. It concentrates wholly on the qualification campaign and then group stages of the World Cup, leaving precious little time for the latter rounds and you can feel the movie lose the audience at this point, so that the last few minutes pass off far less satisfactorily then they should.
Still, this aside, MIKE BASSETT is a really good film. Perhaps even better than ESCAPE TO VICTORY, although actually, that one has got Pele in too, but playing, alongside Michael Caine, Bobby Moore and Sylvester Stallone. MIKE BASSETT: ENGLAND MANAGER has a lot of plus points, but a team like that... that's genius.
Chris Denton.
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