Eleven Men Out
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Movie Reviews of Eleven Men Out
Movie Review: having a blast
Summary: 4 Stars
Shows that prejudices and hard headed people are all over the world as these guys from Iceland must deal with the gay bashing while trying to compete as a gay soccer team. It all starts with the star of a popular soccer team announcing to the press after a game that he's gay. This doesnt go over well with most of the folks on his team his dad included being that he's the coach of the team.
He talks to him like its a sickness or a mental illness that can be "cured" when that drama stop for real. He's not hearing any of it at all and he's also dealing with a way drunk and so out of it ex-wife. He also has a son to look out for as well and he isnt too keen on him putting his business out for the world to see.
But throughout the movie the gain more favor with other folks who don't have an issue with an all gay soccer team. It's filled with drama and what not, but its also a fun movie that most should be able to enjoy.
Movie Review: Sweet natured Fun
Summary: 4 Stars
Loved this film, the Europeans consistently make better gay-themed films and this is more good-natured than most. All the players were consistently good, the lead endearing, the rest wonderfully Scandinavian, and the kids show the incredible universality of the young - I wonder if that is not also a part of globalization. This one will make you smile.Movie Review: Good to see a quality film coming from Iceland!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a story of an Icelandic pro footballer who comes out of the closet only to be met with hostility from his team. He gets booted out of the team and goes off and joins a gay team with the aim to beat his former team mates in a match. A touching, well filmed story in Icelandic. Well worth it.Movie Review: Spectacular and Second-Rate
Summary: 3 Stars
You may want to see the special features about gay, American athletes before watching the film. See, the US has "Personal Best" and "Breaking the Waves" about athletes in individual sports, but this Icelandic film breaks new ground by focusing on team sports. Still, there is a wide golf between professional sports in the US and intramural stuff. I guess "leagues" are more popular in Europe and having a league player come out won't translate as much here. There are whole gay sports leagues in the US, whereas few athletes, of any sexual orientation, will ever make the professionals and get nationwide attention.
That being said, this film does touch upon so many important point. If one player comes out, how will his straight teammates respond? How will the opponents respond? Does having one out player make a team "gay"? Will it attract more openly gay players? Will straight fans disappear and will gay fans mitigate that loss?
As needed as this film is, it also felt rushed in so many areas. The athlete comes out for a dumb reason at the start of the film and does not calculate things in his head the way any reasonable, closeted person would do. He gets introduced to another gay athlete one second, and BOOM!, they are getting down with each other the next. The main character's son walks in on his father getting busy and any reasonable parent would have locked the door or their Spidey sense would have told them their child could show up. Of course, all of this is done to keep up the tension and conflict and get the ball rolling, but it is still highly unrealistic.
I saw this film using a certain red-envelope service. It said the film was in English with English subtitles; it is actually in Icelandic with English subtitles. (I heard that many Northern Europeans speak English, so the first scenario sounded plausible.) Obviously, there are cultural gaps here. The son is called "Maggi," which I later learned was short for "Magnus." However, "Maggi" sounds like a girl's name to my American ears. Think about Maggie Simpson, for example. One minor character seems to be into Black American hip-hop culture. He uses some slang and has African-American film posters on his wall. However, he wears a cowboy hat and many hip-hop B-boys would think of themselves as the antithesis of cowboys. As a side note, the main character and his ex-wife look WAY too young to be the parents of a teenaged boy.
The film fights the image of Iceland as homogenous by showing people of color. There's a Black, gay man on the team. (How many brothas live in Iceland!?) The film seems to be dedicated to a late, biracial male. The film tries to be bisexual-friendly by having the main character get with his ex. Like many a gay film, the straight characters often find romantic partners of their own, thus sending the tacit message that gays don't stop straights from getting lucky. On a possible PC note, one man is seen in a wheelchair using oxygen. Unfortunately, he says close to no lines, makes no movements, and thus his character may be static, in a problematic way.
The film does have a shower scene, for us horny viewers. Still, parents in Iceland must not get a certain procedure done for newborn sons that American parents usually choose, if you know what I mean!
Movie Review: Somewhat pleasant, but lacks substance to be really good.
Summary: 3 Stars
With the Olympic Games grabbing their share of the headlines these days, let's look at a film about an athlete "coming out" in another country ... Iceland.
"Eleven Men Out" (Iceland, 2005) is about a soccer star on one of the best amateur teams in that country, who abruptly decides to "come out" as gay, much to the surprise and complete shock of his teammates, father (who is apparently the head coach of the team), mother, siblings, ex-wife and teenage son. It doesn't go well, with his son ashamed of him, his ex-wife using it as an excuse to relapse with an alcohol problem, and the team trustees benching him until they eventually decide he can no longer play there. A friend who coaches a lesser-known (and apparently much more diverse, with several openly gay members) team invites him to join, and the "Pride" - which becomes almost 100% gay as others hear about it - starts to rack up victories, eventually taking on his old team, in a sold-out game on Gay Pride Day in Iceland.
It's a pleasant coming-out story, but seems more like a documentary than a film with characters and a plot. We never really get to know Ottar (the player who "outs" himself) beyond the facts that he has a past and is somewhat self-centered in not considering (and preparing others for) the possible implications of his announcement to the press, as well as in dealing with a teammate he starts dating. Some of the dialogue seems ad-libbed and frivilous, but that could be due to the fact that I was following English subtitles (The film is in Icelandic). Several seemingly gratuitious shots of the players in the shower make this seem almost like a "Full Monty" remake at times, and the ending - though perhaps realistic - is too abrupt. Similar stories have been told better, and this could have been too.
DVD includes several featurettes about gay amateur athletes. I give it three stars out of five.