Excellent, a Must See

An Exercise In Nonsense

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This movie tells the story about a small Italian village-community, where the people only care about three things: football, football, and more football (and don't call it soccer)! We follow two teams in the story, the good team (which is bad), and the bad team (which is good). Parallel to the story about the two teams fighting each other, we also follow an ambitious referee, Arbitro Cruciani (Stefano Accorsi), who wants to be the head ref in the championship league finals. But it is not such an easy path to success, so he has to make some tough choices during the way, some which may or may not lead him to the final glory.The story itself is a very dark comedy, full of various references, from football-culture itself, to a re-telling of some biblical stories, with the local star footballer Matzutzi (Jacopo Cullin) being some sort of "prodigal son", returning to save the day. There is also a scene of his team have a "final supper" before the final game, and various other references throughout, which I will not spoil here.Now, the movie is extremely beautifully shot, with many scenes reminding of us the master, Sergio Leone, showing huge panoramic views of the wonderful scenery of Italy (or more specifically, Sardinia). The director, Paolo Zucca, is clearly a guy to watch in the future, as he has a firm grasp of the fundamentals of great movie-making.Overall, a very enjoyable black comedy, with lots of laugh-out-loud moments, and great acting-performances, coupled with excellent cinematography. Highly recommended for lovers of Italian cinema, and, of course, football! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!