Up for the cup (Mike Bassett: England Manager (DVD))

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Mike Bassett: England Manager (DVD)
Date:	31/10/02 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant observation

Disadvantages: None

"I know what is round the corner, I just don't know where the corner is" - Kevin Keegan, England Manager.

The job of manager of the England football team has always been one of the most eternally thankless tasks in the world - you may be in the biggest job there is in your profession in your home nation, but you are the most derided, hated and pitied individual in the country, ceaselessly pilloried on television and in the papers, hounded and hunted by the running dogs of the media.

Sven Goran Eriksson is currently going through the sort of experience previously reserved for Kevin Keegan, Glenn Hoddle, Terry Venables, Graham Turnip Taylor, Bobby Robson, Ron Greenwood, Don Revie, Alf Ramsey and all the others. In the case of the lucky Swede, only Ulrika Jonsson's latest public hounding of John Leslie has prevented Eriksson's demise at least in the short term.

There's a unique touch to the eternal torment which haunts the England manager, and the subject is a rich source of dramatic entertainment. It is astonishing, then, that it has taken so long for the subject to be taken up by anyone and fully explored. The quintessentially English nature of the drama, however, which means nothing in the US, has meant that unless we take the bull by the horns, no one else will.

Now, the inestimable Ricky Tomlinson has created a realistic portrait of such a luckless individuals in his role as Mike Bassett England Manager, and this highly amusing mockumentary, parodying all those documents of past World Cup finals with true Panatone Movie News perspective, paints a vivid and enormously satisfying masterpiece. I loved it.

The story is of the rise to fame of Norwich City football manager Mike Bassett, who is the surprise choice to take over as the new boss of the national side when the previous incumbent is ruled out of contention by a massive heart attack. Bassett is a rude and rudimentary individual, classic
ally working class and uncouth, with a primitive approach to the game, and a belief in bottle, spirit and the English mentality.

The team somehow stumbles through Bassett's three games in charge to unexpectedly qualify for the World Cup finals in Rio and it's there that the fun begins.

This film is a rare and wonderful gem, sharply parodying the modern football world, with all sorts of snappy cameos and great performances from Tomlinson, Bradley Allen and Philip Jackson as the limited England management regime, never quite as bizarrely entertaining as the dream ticket of Graham Taylor, Phil Neal and Lawrie McMenemy as popularised in the genuine documentary Do I Not Like That, but well entertaining enough to keep things going throughout this understated and well observed little triumph.

If you don't love and understand the game and the characters and media circus which surrounds it, then Mike Bassett England Manager won't be anywhere near as entertaining as it is if you get the joke. You'll still find it an engaging and warmly amusing piece, but you won't appreciate it fully, with its cruel dissection of the kind of larger than life caricatures you find on the football pitch. I love football, and I adore Mike Bassett, a quite splendid example of the enthusiastically small time English cinema industry. It may not be enormously successful on a global scale, but it's a massive hit in my heart.

You get everything here, a celebrated striker who has lost his bottle, an animalistic defender who teeters on the edge of madness and prison, a clueless Gazza soundalike, an up and coming young talent whose main concern in life is his lack of nickname, and a load of others including the pretty boy who spends all his time on his mobile phone. However, it is the pinpoint accuracy of the portrayal of the clueless old farts who run the game in the country which is the most telling and ferocious of parodies. The chief
exec of the FA is never available for discussion, constantly telling Bassett to push him a note unde rhis office door. When they pull back the carpet, they find a huge pile, including one from Roy Greenwood from the late 70's saying, "Suggest we drop Channon". Mouth watering in its vicious accuracy.

But towering over all this domain is the masterly performance in the lead of Tomlinson, parading the same stereotypical blunt salt of the earth loser stance as he has perfected as Jim Royle, Bobby Grant from Brookside and Nice Guy Eddie. He may be one dimensional as an actor, but he is certainly sincere, earthy and credible, and his explosion of rage at his clueless international no hopers in the interval of one match which sparks a million bleeps, and his baiting in interviews by the press, with comedian Phil Jupitus prominent amongst them, are true wonders to behold.

Truly, this is an adorable film, rich in comic invention and wit, painting a gorgeous picture of the modern day game

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