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David Beckham’s headline-grabbing shimmy at the BAFTAs – “the children loved Paddington” – showed once again that the worlds of sport and entertainment are growing ever closer.
Likewise the multibillion pound deal signed by the Premier League – talk about a blockbuster production.
With every single Premier League game now costing broadcasters £10 million a throw (three times what it cost to make Bend it Like Beckham) the distinction between performances on the screen and performances on the park is getting harder to make. At the end of the day, it’s all showbiz dahling!
Getting it wrong
As the bums filling the seats, we get to pay our money and take our choice. But Beckham’s presence on the red carpet inevitably threw up an old debate. Just how do they manage to get it so not-quite-right quite so often when they put sport on the silver screen?
For whatever reason, and for all the CGI in the world, it seems the one area of cinema where the suspension of disbelief falls down is in Hollywood’s portrayal of sport. Let’s be fair, even in the classic Escape to Victory, neither team looked like they’d ever trouble the bookies in the Bundesliga betting did they?
Please, though, don’t let anyone try to go to the trouble of a remake. The clanking awkwardness of the action scenes (and some of the acting) is perversely part of the overall charm of what is an unashamedly patriotic classic. If you want Germans and football it’s available on BT Sport.
Thumbs down
Now before you start to hiss and boo, we’re bound to admit, there are plenty of fabulous films out there that don’t deserve the thumbs down. Depending on your view of sport, you could point to Rush, The Wrestler, The Hustler and even dear old Rocky.
But for every Chariots of Fire out there, there is a Legend of Bagger Vance or a Blades of Glory to balance the books. And let’s not pull out of the tackle here, those films really stink. An unscientific and over-caffeinated discussion during an editorial meeting established the following grounds for complaint.
This is not a definitive list but it is offered here as a way to kick start the discussion. Feel free to add to it. Here are the reasons we have been unable to stick with various ventures that have tried to capture the magic:
Sports starts can’t act
Acting stars may be good sports but they’re only occasionally good at sport. Sporting spontaneity is the mirror image of scripted drama.
The two are almost always at odds. Crowds need more than 50 extras to look the part. That winning and losing binary is just such a lame plot device it inevitably leads to schmaltz. Only Rush has ever had a decent sporting soundscape – every other sport film sounds awful
Documentaries don’t count: When We Were Kings is still awesome. The sport should be the backdrop. Cinema works best when it’s about character.
Golden Paws wins
We are pretty sure that there are a great many other reasons why movies about sport fail to make the grade.
In fairness there are plenty of non-sporting flicks that you could say that about, too. But those films have their own problems.
Terrible cliché it may be, but a film with a sporting theme is often one to avoid. In fact, as Beckham would no doubt agree, they are all too often barely watchable.
Words by Martin Pettitt