Goal! The Dream Begins (2005)

GOAL is a really great film with an exciting storyline. The different parts go really well together. It is a typical football fan's film and is great fun to watch. The characters are great and the acting is superb! I would recommend anyone who likes footie to go and see it, especially if you're a Newcastle United fan. It features Alan Shearer, Keiron Dyer, Lee Bowyer, Steven Gerrard and Patrick Kluivert. It is well worth a visit and is definitely worth 10/10!!! I took a friend who hates football but she decided she would go. She thoroughly enjoyed the film and would also recommend it. My overall opinion is: a great film that flows well and is very enjoyable!

Fmovies: GOAL is a very good soccer film, sort of a throwback to all the sports films of the 1940's-50's. There were some unexpected surprises, too. I never knew that Newcastle could look so good. I had only seen it depicted in the wonderful "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" TV series, and then parts of it were being dismantled by the Auf Wiedersehen crew - including Christopher Fairbanks, who has a smallish role in GOAL. Do I recommend GOAL for soccer fans? Most certainly; and for fans of British movies, too. There are one or two very minor things about the movie that leave me a bit puzzled, though.

How can Tony Plana, the actor playing the hero's Mexican gardener father and illegal border crosser, realistically play that role when he's got a mouth full of those artificially big, bright Hollywood teeth? I just couldn't get past it - an illegal gardener without a green card but who's got thousands of dollars in dental work blazing across the screen! No self-respecting actor should ever get involved with this absurd fad of capping, whitening, bleaching and brightening. It's fake, fake, fake. As good an actor as Plana is, I'd have disqualified him from the role for that reason alone.

My other comment is really a question. Who is playing the broadcast commentator in the film? The credits say it's someone named Rob Lee. However, the voice seems to ring a bell for me, yet I can't find anyone in football broadcasting named Rob Lee. Whoever it is, he's doing a fine job and sounds very authentic.

I really liked the film.

In 'Goal' Kuno Becker plays Santiago Munez, an illegal alien living in Los Angels. Despite his hardships, Santiago loves to play soccer. So much so, that he is really quite good. Good enough to get the notice of a former scout of Newcastle United. Santiago gets the opportunity to go to England and try out for this premier football team. But if he does not make it, he will not be able to return to Los Angels.

This is a heartwarming tale of one man's struggle to become something more. Despite the obstacles and the disapproval of his father (Tony Plana), he goes for the goal. Only to find that it is not going to be that easy after all.

I would say this film is 'Bend it Like Beckham' meets 'Gattaca'. Not that Santiago needs to meet any DNA tests, but he is in a world that is virtually unknown to him. He has to keep secrets about himself in order to fit in because most expect him to fail. Some will even try to make him fail.

Goal! The Dream Begins fmovies. Until recently in history, whenever the world of film and the world of football combined, the results had often been negligible. With the GOAL! trilogy, a new precedent has been set for not only the genre, but also for the global sport itself, in terms of its plausibility in film towards its millions of demanding fans worldwide.

What this film does on the base level is to authentically present the game in high quality realism on the silver screen. However, that alone does not lend the film its credo. What makes it stand as the definitive standard bearer for films of football (given how every other sport especially American ones have managed to succeed filmwise- Bull Durham, Space Jam, Mighty Ducks, Remembering the Titans, etc) is that it carries many thematic layers on its back, pushes the frontiers of the genre with depth in the storyline, and finally aces in delivering a film that merges drama with sport, hype and overall verisimilitude in all content elements.

Obviously, every critic knows that the methodology of such a delivery is that it requires realism, and in cinematography especially- exactly what the film provides, and as a result gives it that definitive edge. Soccer films have never been entirely authentic, due to factors as diverse as action mapping, as well as dramatic scope. Furthermore, fans of the sport knew that nothing in cinema could ever approximate the sheer unscriptable drama of the actual game. Until GOAL! came along. When FIFA commissioned and granted the rights for the film to Danny Cannon, the air of realism was set in motion already, because albeit being fictional, it carries the authority of the universal game as fans know it because of its simulated parallels- real clubs, real superstars like Zidane, Raul, Shearer, etc, and realities of the game's actual hierarchies and bureaucracies have been surmised- reserves, leagues, scouts, agents and pressures.

AG Salomon/Adidas may have pumped advertising dollar into this film for placement of their teams (Newcastle United, Real Madrid) and sponsored players for marketing, but in a sense, when the result is this authentic, can you blame the corporations for input? In fact, fans might even have to thank them for producing what can be the first high profile and quality football film on record. Just recall the maudlin world of football film until the recent revival of films of the genre, which incidentally mirror the revolution of football and its branding that began in the 1990s and the likes of superstars like Beckham. In recent years, this revival has seen film entries usher in on the commercial success of football, from 1996's 'Fever Pitch' to 2002's Bend it like Beckham, but never has a film about the game itself been done the way it has been done here, in such centrality.

In fact, the very dearth of such films is an understatement and may well be the fuel for the GOAL! trilogy's impending success. Even football legend PELE alluded to the paucity of football films- or at least those of the simple concept explaining structures of wealth, class and the disparities of rich and poor in congruence with football. The plot by Butchart and Jeffries in this film stands out because of this - featuring the barrios of S.America; the institution of organized football religion in England, and a rag to riches drama, where Becker's character combines innocence and disappointments with success and 'aspiracion' in true underdog fantasy. The script is far from genius but it has depth- genuine troughs (poverty,

Right from the beginning this movie dose a great job of keeping your attention. It shows how hard it really is for any athlete, in this case a soccer player to make it pro. Even though the movie is not based off of a true story it feels as if it should be and there are many obstacles that(Munez)has to overcome throughout the movie. Overall the movie has become an all time favorite of mine and i have already seen it twice. It is a sleeper and if you are a fan of the English premier league or just of soccer in general you should definitely go and see this movie. Its worth your time and money and i think that you too will fall in love with it just like i have. So please go see the movie Goal cause you definitely won't be disappointed.

Yes, this is another sports biography that offers a stage on which to play out the drama of the possibilities of dreams of the disenfranchised to become a reality. There are many, many films like this one and will doubtless be more: something there is about the 'team spirit' in the identity crisis of whether or not the poor (financially) new guy will be able to make the physical grade that draws large audiences. It is a formula and it often works despite weak structure and production values.

In the case of GOAL! THE DREAM BEGINS the viewer can put aside the doubts as to whether the film can make it on its own: this little low profile movie is well written (Mike Jefferies's story adapted for the screen by Adrian Butchart), well directed by Danny Cannon who knows well how to integrate live sports scenes into the drama, and consistently well acted by a troop of excellent actors, beginning with the very vibrant, handsome, and charismatic Kuno Becker ('Lucia, Lucia', 'Imagining Argentina', 'Once Upon a Wedding', 'English as a Second Language'), a 28 year old Mexican actor with an assured future in the lead role of Santiago. The supporting roles are classy contributions by the gifted Alessandro Nivola ('The Sisters', 'Junebug', 'The Clearing', 'Laurel Canyon', 'Love's Labour's Lost', 'Mansfield Park' etc), the very beautiful Anna Friel, Stephen Dillane, Marcel Iures, Tony Plana, Miriam Colon to mention only a few.

The story is secondary: as a child devotee of soccer Santiago immigrates illegally into the US with his family, grows up in Los Angeles working as a gardener, a dishwasher and other menial tasks while he consumes his spare time with developing his unique talents for soccer. Despite his father's insistence that he remain with the family business of gardening, Santiago is discovered by a scout on vacation from England, a bond develops and soon Santiago is off to Newcastle to pursue his dream of being a professional soccer player. The rest is pretty obvious - the ups and downs of an asthmatic kid competing in the wild world of sports. The star of the moment is Alessandro Nivola and despite the differences in their goals and social life they become friends who help each other in tender ways. There is of course a love interest, telephone calls and encouragement form Santiago's grandmother, adjustments to life in the UK -all altering the road toward Santiago's eventually attained goal.

The film is a bit lengthy (two hours) for the content, but then we understand this is the first of a trilogy, so get used to the story and the characters as they all remain constant for the next two installments. Whatever reservations you may have about sitting through another predictable sports movie just relax them: Kuno Becker alone is worth the time invested in this very fine little film. Grady Harp