It’s the story of a sports trainer for whom nothing is going well. Once a legend of the profession, he is now the laughing stock of it. Divorced in spite of himself and worn on the bottle, he hit the bottom of the barrel. Proof that we can always go a little lower: here he is parachuted into the worst team in the league. Yes, you have already seen this film, or rather these films, whether in the context of basketball, or American football, or hockey, or baseball… In sports comedy Next Goal Wins (A dream team), Michael Fassbender plays in this case a coach soccer, or “football”.
Co-written and directed by the talented Taika Waititi, to whom we owe the most unique, and therefore more interesting, Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Hunting the Wilderpeople), Thor: Ragnarok And Jojo Rabbit (Jojo), the film Next Goal Wins is, however, based on a very inspiring true story (fictionalized, as it should be).
The backdrop is one of the film’s greatest strengths. Indeed, the action takes place in American Samoa.
The protagonist, Thomas Rongen (Fassbender, decent, but not at his best), arrives there reluctantly. This, after his employer, the United States Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT), sent him there after one too many escapades during a match. Rongen thus has the choice between a position that no one wants or dismissal.
To say that the team that the fiery misanthrope inherited is the worst is absolutely not hyperbole: it is a statistical fact. It’s Rongen’s character to transform these losers into winners. Known air, again.
Uneven humor
That said, another asset of the film lies in the person of Jaiyah Saelua, the very first non-binary and trans player to have competed at the FIFA World Cup. Kaimana embodies this fa’afafine with panache: a third gender recognized and respected in Samoa.
The conflict of personalities between the latter and Rongen gives spice to a film which, otherwise, is seriously lacking.
Moreover, the general humorous content turns out to be very uneven. Half the time, the jokes miss their mark, like players who repeatedly miss the goal. Here again, Taika Waititi has accustomed us to better.
And that’s without mentioning the underuse of Elisabeth Moss, in the role of Rongen’s ex: the gifted actress is here reduced to varying the compassionate expressions on the phone.
Certainly, the filmmaker goes beyond exotic clichés in his portrait of the local community, but his structure is limited to recycling hackneyed and hyper-predictable narrative formulas. Even when we know their outcome in advance, many of these sports comedies and dramas manage to entertain, even galvanize (see Hoosiers), by infusing energy, style, even subversion (although this is rarer), into said formulas.
Next Goal Wins does none of this, or very little. At this point, it’s almost like counting towards your own goal.