Celebrating Soccer: 'The Damned United' Is Uncompromising And Brilliant
- Tuesday, March 30, 2010 11:10 AM
- Written By: Harry Parmenter
Just spent eight days a week in London Town, trailing The Stranglers, best rock band to ever draw blood in my book.
You want rock 'n' roll, you go find Down In The Sewer, Unbroken or Genetix, and thank me later.
Going and coming watched a BBC film titled, "The Damned United," one of the best sports films I have ever seen.
Football rules in Europa and America, but it's a completely different game on each continent. Here we have the Mannings, Belichick and the Packers; there you've got Wayne Rooney, Brian Clough and Manchester United.
Soccer -- the American definition -- is a huge youth sport here. My daughter played for years, California State Champion as a matter of fact led by masterful coach Kai Kuwata, and club soccer is an entire youth pursuit for doting parents in the U S of A.
Yet the game has not and will not translate here because in dumbass terms there's no room for commercials. Long halves sans interruption and distant camera angles like hockey make it hard for the average American fan to follow. Yet around the world its TV ratings dwarf the Super Bowl's.
And the reason being it is a beautiful game plain and simple.
Do yourself a favor and e-mail NetFlix for "The Damned United," the story of a cocky young coach named Brian Clough and his erstwhile assistant, Pete Taylor.
I loved John Huston's "Victory" with Sly in his prime, Pele and Michael Caine, but "The Damned United" is a bullet on net in comparison.
Starring Michael Sheen (The British Brad Pitt), Timothy Spall (rodent man in Potter and Alan Rickman's henchman in Sweeney Todd -- don't tell me you didn't watch it--more blood than a Roger Corman flick) and Jim Broadbent, it is simply a riveting piece of work about two rival coaches, revenge, respect and redemption.
In a word, stunning.
Football is religion in Britain, and spend a week there and you'll understand why. My God, the game starts, 80,000 in the stands on their feet singing anthems start to finish. And not a damn bit unmasculine (sic).
Like hockey, Canadian gospel, there's not a lot of scoring, but the game is a microcosm of life: Character, guts and drive between the lines defining the men who play it, the media that follow it and the men AND women who worship it.
It is poetic and magnetizing at once, a synchronous game that gradually sucks you in until you can't get enough.
"The Damned United" is the perfect intro to the game, brilliantly directed by Tom Hooper and emblematic of a proud nation, our greatest ally through thick and thin, and fine entertainment to boot (sorry).
I don't pretend to understand cricket (paddles?) but rugby I get and football Euro-style offers a plethora of gut-level pleasures: Astounding athleticism and thrills, teamwork galore and political intrigue as a VAT (look it up).
This film is the cinematic equivalent of The Stranglers. In fact, if "Sexy Beast" hadn't already stolen "Peaches" for its act one coda, Hooper would have probably jumped on it. Because the band and the film are at one:
Uncompromising.
Direct.
Politically Incorrect.
Brilliant, as the Brits say.
See the film.
Buy the record (start with Rattus Norvegicus and go from there).
This is what Real Men are made of.
