Believe

Another day, and another wonder from Sky Movies. *Cue dramatic trailer voice* For the first time, Sky Movies On Demand was able to show a movie on the very same day of it's cinematic release. Granted it's a relatively low-key film, but rather a good one nonetheless I feel. Believe is set in 1980s Manchester ("come on you Reds!"...Sorry...) and focuses on an ageing Sir Matt Busby (played by Brian Cox) shaken out of coaching retirement when he decides to manage a local Under-12s team.
I have to admit, upon seeing the initial premise I had very high hopes for this film. Indeed, I thought it may have the potential to become a modern-day classic football film, much like the TV drama United of a few years ago. If you focus on a couple of key elements, this may well still be the case for Believe, but if you look at the whole package, unfortunately it doesn't quite hit the mark.

There were only a few negatives in an otherwise very positive film, yet they were quite major. For a start, the young male lead Georgie Gallagher (played by Jack Smith) whilst not being totally woeful (for my views on potentially woeful child actors - see my COLUMN) did only just scrape by as a typically stereotyped unruly street kid with a talent for football. There were a couple of shining moment, but mostly Jack Smith came across as uppity, arrogant, and attention-seeking just as his character often did, which oddly did not make for good watching.
I feel they missed a trick with the youth section of the cast; for instead of primarily focusing on one boy, they should have made more of an ensemble out of it, for there were some utterly hilarious and cracking characters among the young 7-aside team, especially the Mr.Plod hat-wearing Spencer.

Other negatives? Well the pace of the film felt a bit out of kilter to me. It certainly wasn't drawn out, which would have been a bit stagnant, but conversely there were a few moments that felt a tad too rushed, thus any meaning and symbolism, as well as crucially any emotion audiences were meant to draw from proceedings had a tendency to be lost in the scene changes.
Also, whilst Sir Matt Busby and the Munich Air Disaster of 1958 often go hand-in-hand, especially within the realms of dramatization, the tenuous links and flashbacks were occasionally too laboured. Though there were a couple of moments where Busby "sees" his fallen players that were beautiful to behold in my view. The film opens by telling us it was "based on true events", but it is quickly plain to see that they are not really fooling anyone for the most part, and trying to harmonize most of the plot with real-life events does cheapen things, which I feel is a bit of a shame.

If we look to the adult cast however, we are treated to a few gems. We see welcome appearences from Anne Reid and Philip Jackson who, despite playing supporting roles, both offer great airs of quality to Believe. We also see a wonderfully affable, amusing and lovable character called Dr Farquar, played by Toby Stephens. However, the stand out performance by far for me, and the one aspect of Believe that might be good enough to salvage all the negative points, is is the ever-dependably brilliant Brian Cox as Sir Matt Busby. Cox has took on many and varied roles during his time, and produced many great performances, but I really think this is one he should be remembered for. Never overstated, seemingly effortless, highly emotive and creating masses of magnetism, Brian Cox and his titular character really are the stars of the show here.

So yes, I stick by what I said when I claimed Believe to be a rather good film. By no means perfect, it does have enough shining plus points to warrant a watch. Plain, simple (if a tad predictable) but nonetheless an enjoyable hour and a half.