Next Goal Wins

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Taika Waititi, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss

Director: Taika Waititi

Based on the documentary "Next Goal Wins" directed by Mike Brett & Steve Jamison

After infamously losing 31-0 to Australia in the 2001 World Cup Qualifiers, American Samoa is now considered the worst football team in the world. Ten years after suffering their embarrassing defeat, their soccer federation decides enough is enough and they need to take steps to improve and begin their steps towards qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. The leader of the Federation, Tavita (Kightley), believes this begins with hiring a good coach. Enter Thomas Rongen (Fassbender) who has no actual interest in coaching the team but is forced to take the assignment to avoid further punishment. While he doesn't take the job seriously at first, he soon learns of the beating heart behind the players and the people of American Samoa. With the help of Jaiyah (Kaimana), a fa'afafine ( third gender) member of the team, Rongen is able to put his prejudices aside and begins to help the team achieve its dream of scoring a goal on the international level.

The underdog sports film isn't anything new and you pretty much know exactly you're going to get with these kind of stories. While this isn't necessarily a bad entry into the genre, I feel like this never reaches the heights it could have.

I like Taika Waititi, I really do. He has an incredibly diverse filmography of movies that I enjoy (What We Do in the Shadows, Thor: Ragnarok, JoJo Rabbit) that is filled to the brim with his personality. However I don't think he was the best director to bring this story to the big screen. Based on a 2014 documentary of the same name, this could have been a much more inspiring sports film than it ultimately is. What that team and Rongen were able to accomplish is incredible and probably should have been given a more dramatic approach to fully commemorate it. Waititi leans too heavily into the comedic aspects of the story and follows his instinct to undercut the drama with comedy a little too much. I don't mind comedy in dramatic movies but this feel more akin to Dodgeball than something like Cool Runnings.

That's not to say the humor doesn't work because it mostly does. I laughed out loud a lot in this. The way the people of American Samoa react to Rongen is very funny. They are more baffled at him than he is of them. Tavita seems to hold every job on the island and the roles he pops up in are very fun. However, when the movie does need to shift into dramatic mode, the aforementioned undercutting ensues. There is a moment before the teams first game where a character is about to give a heartfelt speech only as it ramps up in interrupted to be told the game is starting. It works about as well as you think it did in Thor: Love and Thunder.

I would have liked to get to know the players on the team better as well. It does choose to focus on one or two main ones but other than Jaiyah even that feels incomplete. Granted one of the reasons TV shows like Ted Lasso, which is also a fish-out-of-water sports story about a soccer coach, work so well is because the medium allows for greater character exploration and gives all the characters a chance to shine and grow. Waititi doesn't have the space to do that here but also I feel like a more dramatic approach would have allowed for more to happen than what we are given. Fans of Ted Lasso will find a similar uplifting approach here and will find a lot to enjoy.

Fassbender is quite good as Rongen, who reminded me a lot of Walter Matthau's Morris Buttermaker from The Bad News Bears. Fassbender gets to deliver a great speech towards the end that Waititi wisely chooses to not undercut and I felt the emotion of the story surface in a way that I wish had been allowed more in the movie. As good as Fassbender is, the real gem and heart of the movie comes from the American Samoa cast. Oscar Kightley absolutely steals the show as Tavita. Outside of him seemingly holding every job on the island, he just has a lovable personality and inspiring world outlook. A lot of the genuine laughs come from him. Kaimana is also quite good as Jaiyah, the first transgender (fa'afafine) player to compete in a World Cup game. I was a little worried how the movie treated them at first, with Rongen bordering on hateful towards the character. Having not seen the documentary, I don't know if this was an aspect of the story that was played up for the film. However the movie drops Rongen's attitude towards them early and it quickly transforms into a good-natured relationship between the two (Jaiyah becomes the team captain). This relationship is capped by a heartfelt moment between them towards the end.

It sounds like I disliked this movie more than I did. As I said, the biggest issue for me was Waititi's approach to the material. The movie is emotional when it is allowed to be and, for better or worse, has Waititi's signature humor to keep things entertaining.

Grade: B-