Goal!
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
5x2
Goal!
This is a too-good-to-be true story with a too-nice-to-be-true hero. The reason why the feature works as well as it does is that you just can't help but root for the goodhearted and good-looking Santiago (Kuno Becker), who goes to England to play for Newcastle United, seeking to fulfill his dream of becoming a professional footballer. If football isn't your thing, the feature probably won't be either. On the other hand, if it is your thing, there is plenty of beautiful football to enjoy. The characters fit their stereotypes, and the narrative never parts from formula. There isn't any doubt what the outcome of Santiago's struggles will be, but getting there is nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, intriguing and fun. "Goal!" is a really sweet feel-gooder.
( Julie Vinten )
As an ardent soccer lover, I was secretly looking forward to this film for some time and, ahem, I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I felt like I was 10-years-old by the time I staggered out of the cinema. "Goal!" is the first big-budget movie to tackle soccer, and it's the first one to come close to capturing something of the so-called beautiful game. Santiago (Kuno Becker) is an illegal Mexican immigrant living in L.A. who gets discovered by an ex-soccer scout. Before he knows it, he's competing for a first-team place with English side Newcastle United. Sure, "Goal!" is little more than a modern fairy tale, but it throws in a few cynical and knowing winks while showing just what makes soccer such an exhilarating, beautiful and mad spectacle.
1/2 ( Tim Ochser )
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Must. Resist. Strangling. Inane. Filmmakers. Argh! I absolutely loathed this movie, plain as that. Enough people bought the first movie on DVD to get a sequel made, and let's just say those people didn't do any of us a favor. This is something so unbelievably horrible and sincerely unfunny, you can't believe your own eyes and ears. Incredibly gross and downright malicious gags dominate the screen because the filmmakers are too dim-witted to see when their jokes are crossing the line. There is at least one absurdly distasteful profanity in every sentence, which is kind of an accomplishment - although possibly the movie's only one. And the final blow: I imagine that they hired the director because his surname is Bigelow. Now that's humor. How low can you sink?
( Julie Vinten )
There are two kinds of cinematic bad in this world: there is good bad and bad bad. To review "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo," however, a third paradigm would be needed, such as execrably and egregiously bad. Deuce Bigalow (Rob Schneider) is in Amsterdam on vacation when he has to go undercover as a "man-whore" because his pimp friend TJ (Eddie Griffin) has been framed for the murder of several gigolos. Cue 83 minutes of jokes about penises, cannabis, physical deformities and homosexuals. Some American comedies are mindless and enthusiastic enough to be almost charming. This is not one of them. The poster for this film shows Deuce sitting in front of a semi-erect leaning tower of Pisa. But the entire film takes place in Amsterdam. Enough said.
( Tim Ochser )
5x2
In "5x2," French director Francois Ozon presents his melancholy version of love through a lot of loveless sex, infidelity and desolation. The story begins with the end of a relationship and moves backwards in time through the couple's life together. But the viewer is never offered any concrete reason to care, which prevents the story from becoming significant or catching. All we feel for the characters is the same miserable emptiness that they feel for each other. The story is chronologically reversed to emphasize the distressing breakup. Ozon seems convinced that a breakup is the unavoidable outcome of a relationship, making "5x2" a very cold movie. The narrative is skeletal and the characters' motivations are largely left unexplained, leaving this drama slightly boring and strangely hollow.
( Julie Vinten )
French director Francois Ozon's latest offering is an altogether disappointing affair. It follows the breakdown of a marriage between Gilles (Stephane Freiss) and Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) through five episodes shown in reverse order. The set-pieces begin with the couple's divorce and close with them sitting on a Mediterranean beach at sunset, so that the film concludes with a happy ending that was really a happy beginning. The two lead actors are excellent, and Ozon's script is sharply written. But, as a fragmented whole, the film fails to capture the depth of its characters and explore the claustrophobic conditions of marriage in the way, say, that Bergman's masterly "Scenes From a Marriage" did. The scene in which Marion has a fling on her wedding night is downright embarrassing.
( Tim Ochser )
