GOAL! THE DREAM BEGINS - Blu-ray review

Movie reviewed by John J. Puccio; Video/Audio/Extras reviewed by James Plath

Question: How many inspirational, sports-oriented movies do people need to see in a lifetime? Maybe the answer depends on the sport. If it's miniature golf, the answer is probably none. If it's something as popular as international football (governed by FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association), known in the U.S. as soccer, the answer is probably never enough. So, we get Touchstone Picture's 2005 soccer story, "Goal! The Dream Begins."

One of the DVD's accompanying featurettes tells us that soccer is the most-popular sport in the world, the numbers in attendance at worldwide soccer matches dwarfing the number of people attending America's Super Bowl. In the U.S., however, soccer is just catching on and has a ways to go to match the popularity of American football. That may explain why the film did not do as well at the box office in the U.S. as the producers might have hoped. Still, it's a winning film, formulaic, to be sure, but rather touching, too. Personally, I have no interest in soccer; but just as I have no interest in golf, either, but enjoyed "The Greatest Game Ever Played," I rather liked "Goal!" Just don't expect too much out of it that you couldn't guess going in.

The movie is a typical rags-to-riches Cinderella story about a poor boy making good in the world of sports. Yes, it is inspirational, but I'm not entirely sure it's in the best interests of youngsters because it could give them false hopes. Teaching high school for so many years as I did, I can't tell you how many failing students told me it was OK for them to flunk out of school because they were going to be basketball stars when they grew up. So, remember, this is only a movie, a one-in-a-million story, a fairy tale if you will.

The plot concerns a poor, young illegal immigrant, Santiago Muniz (Kuno Becker), who lives in a low-income barrio of Los Angeles. During the day he works with his dad gardening, at night he works as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant, and in-between times he plays soccer. He's so poor he wears shin pads made from cardboard boxes. But he has a dream to become a professional soccer player (well, what kid doesn't?), and he has a gift for the game.

While there is almost nothing about the story we haven't seen before, it does have a sweet spirit, and the sports sequences are quite exciting and well staged. As we might expect, Santiago gets no support from his father, who thinks his son's ambition to become a professional athlete is stupid and worthless. The father believes that hard work trumps idle dreams any day, and, yes, he has a point.

Then a former British soccer scout, Glen Foy (Stephan Dillane), spots Santiago playing in a minor-league match, and the young man impresses him. Foy is impressed enough to invite Santiago to try out for Newcastle United, a big-time British club. But Santiago has to pay his own way to England, so just getting there is half the problem.

The film's director, Danny Cannon ("I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," "Judge Dredd," "The Young Americans"), tells us in a commentary that in order for a sports film to be successful, the main character has to have heart. This is what Kuno Becker delivers; he's confident and charismatic. Indeed, without Becker in the lead role, I'm not sure anything else in the story would have worked. The fact is, apart from Becker and the game sequences, which the film does up with verve, there isn't much else to recommend it. The dramatic moments are all rather hackneyed, the coincidences mount up rather quickly, and the outright melodrama gets heavy-handed rather fast. It's a little like piling on, particularly the inevitable love interest (Anna Friel) and the inevitable partying with the team's superstar (Alessandro Nivola).

Every vicissitude imaginable befalls poor Santiago as his saga gets worse before it gets better. Then it gets worse again and better and worse yet again before ending in the triumph we know is coming. "Goal!" is no "Rocky" because we never actually come as close to the main character as in that older film, but it has the basic "Rocky" style down pat. Santiago's tale seems highly unlikely, especially as it unfolds in so short a time, compressed as it is for a motion picture, but I suppose after real-life stories like "The Rookie" and "Invincible," anything is possible.

"Goal! The Dream Begins" begins as a stereotypical sob story but turns out to be entirely uplifting, just as advertised. Santiago overcomes the odds and the hardships through the sheer power of will; and the big, splashy, telescoped ending really does make one feel good. This film will not go down in the record books as one of the great sports flicks of all time, but it's not the worst, either.

Video:
The 1080p Hi Def (2.40:1 aspect ratio) picture looks very good. John mentioned that nighttime shots looked better than daytime shots in the SD release, but that's not the case here. Though there's greater color saturation in high-light situations, you get the same amount of detail (which is considerable) in low-light as well as natural or high light. As with so many of these athletic films of late, there's a blurred and slightly surreal movement during key action sequences, no doubt because none of the actors are capable of performing at the level of professional sports. In "Goal!" these moments aren't as patchwork-looking, and that makes for a more consistent visual experience.

Audio:
The rear speakers capture plenty of ambient noise, whether it's crowds or the music and conversation inside one of the London nightclubs. The English 5.1 uncompressed sound (48kHz, 16-bit) is crisp and pure, with a driving bass and bright treble. As with the video, it's a hefty improvement on the SD quality. Additional audio options are English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English SDH, French, and Spanish.

Extras:
The audio commentary with director Danny Cannon and writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais is pretty standard. They cover all the bases you'd expect, with no surprises and no disappointments. The only other feature (we're not going to count "Movie Showcase," a throwaway extra which gives you select scenes to play that showcase the Blu-ray technology) is a very brief featurette on "Behind the Pitch," which shows how filmmakers combined footage of the actors with real-game clips. Missing from the SD features is an even shorter featurette on "The Beautiful Game" that tries to contextualize the importance of football/soccer in the world, a music video, and highlights from FIFA World Cup football/soccer. None of the missing features are all that substantial or long, but you'd think that Buena Vista would have left in the FIFA clips because they're so short, and in the United States, soccer is a big participation sport with kids but not much of a spectator sport. If there's a commercial needed anywhere for the sport, it's here.

Parting Thoughts:
"Miracle"? "Remember the Titans"? No, "Goal! The Dream Begins" will probably not go down in the annals of popular sports films the way those movies have, but much of "Goal!" is engaging and fun to watch, thanks mainly to Kuno Becker in the title role (he's such a nice kid, we can't help but root for him), and the well-photographed soccer matches. The rest of the characters and plot might have been phoned in, so you won't want to get your hopes up too high in those areas; just concentrate on the best the film has to offer.