Film: Next Goal Wins
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Taika Waititi, Will Arnett
Co-Writer/Director: Taika Waititi
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 104 min

This one is a stock formulaic sports comedy even though it’s based on real events, with Taika Waititi himself presiding ( as narrator / priest) over the resurrection of American Samoa (not to be mixed up with Samoa) World Cup yet-to-qualify football team. The treatment is silly, pretty much light-weight and irreverent, yet it manages to get you involved in its mockumentary-like playful gimmicks. Like the story it parlays, this film has rather feeble ambitions.

The revving up of the team and the taking account of it on film are happening side-by-side and there’s much more than just football training happening here. Imagine a losing team who hasn’t scored a single goal and has let in the highest number of goals (31) in a World Cup qualifier, trying to aim for a small uplift target of scoring at least one goal. It wasn’t going to happen with their existing mild-mannered soft-hearted coach…