Movie review – “Footy Legends” (2006) **

Wanted so much to like this more than I did because its heart is so evidently in the right place. And there is much to like: Anh Do is a genuine leading man (looking quite buff in some scenes), and the film is mostly well cast: all the blokes who make up the footy team are striking, the little girl is great as are the old people; Claudia Karvan is way too likeable to play the social worker (maybe they didn’t want to go with cliché and make this character evil – but it’s a cliché movie, they should have made her evil, it would have given a needed antagonist). Peter Phelps’ baddy comes into the piece way too late. The film comes alive in scenes between Ahn Do and his Vietnamese family – it would have been a better movie if they’d concentrated on that. Instead they go for the inspirational sports movie template without understanding what makes it tick – you need baddies, a gun player brought back into the fold, an old coach who helps you, and most of all, lots of montages to music. The music budget on this obviously went too quickly – we get grabs of songs, “Shine” and “What’s My Scene” – but in sports movies you need to coat the sports sequences with music. Some bits don’t have music at all. The speeches and editing clunk a little bit, too.