Just Films & That is a podcast that celebrates underrated and underseen films. In this episode, Josh chose Mike Bassett England Manager because he thinks it’s underrated. He also wants to know if you can enjoy this film if you are not a fan of football. You can listen to all episodes of Just Films and That now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 An unlikely hero who hailed from football's lower leagues
00:04 and in their desperate hour of need, answered his nation's call.
00:08 ..new manager to take us into the World Cup.
00:10 Mike Bassett, England manager, is a film from 2001.
00:13 It's a mockumentary comedy sports film about a football manager
00:17 called Mike Bassett who gets a job managing the England squad.
00:21 Yeah, so I chose this one.
00:22 I chose this one for a few reasons, really,
00:24 but let's take a quick look at the scores before I tell you.
00:26 So, at the time of recording on IMDb, it gets 6.8 out of 10.
00:31 The audience over on Rotten Tomatoes give it 76%
00:34 and the critics on Rotten Tomatoes give it 40%,
00:37 which averages out around 61%.
00:40 So I think this is quite underrated based on that score.
00:43 I particularly think the critics are quite harsh on it.
00:46 And I was interested to know, a little bit of an experiment, really,
00:49 I was interested to know, can you like this film
00:52 or can you get a lot out of this film
00:54 if you have no interest in football?
00:56 Had you seen it before? And if not, what did you think?
00:59 I hadn't seen it before, but it was a bit on my radar.
01:02 So, as I've mentioned to you previously,
01:03 the men in my family are football obsessed.
01:07 So this was definitely one that I was aware of.
01:09 I do certainly think that if you are a fan of British football,
01:12 there is a lot in this for you
01:14 and the jokes probably hit a lot harder.
01:16 But as a passive fan,
01:17 there was quite a lot for me to enjoy in there as well.
01:19 So I really liked the way they utilised the mockumentary style.
01:23 And this was all used really effectively
01:24 to create quite a lot of the comedy in the film, I thought.
01:27 There were some great moments of physical comedy in this.
01:29 Ricky Tomlinson is obviously doing a lot in this film.
01:32 And some of my favourite moments
01:34 were when the camera is watching him watching the game
01:37 and he's having these really huge over-the-top reactions
01:40 where he's wincing because his players are playing badly
01:42 and things just aren't going well.
01:44 And a lot of the scenes and a lot of the dialogue,
01:46 a lot of the script, it all felt quite familiar
01:48 and like things you would actually hear
01:50 people who work in football say.
01:52 An old-fashioned manager and the players simple.
01:54 Four, four, two, three, five, one, one.
01:57 Three, one, two, one, two, one for me.
02:00 There's probably no doubt that liking football
02:03 really enriches the comedy in this film for you.
02:06 It's a really good parody of things like the way footballers
02:08 and managers talk after the game.
02:10 It makes a lot of good points about the way the press treat football
02:13 and football managers and the England team, stuff like that.
02:15 There's bits in it, particularly towards the end,
02:17 where you're seeing how all the stress
02:19 and how all the pressure has really got to Mike.
02:21 And I think that he does a really good job
02:23 of making it feel likeable and relatable
02:26 and you want to see him succeed.
02:28 I did note that a lot of the jokes in this are self-contained gags.
02:32 They aren't things that propel the story along.
02:34 They don't really develop the characters at all.
02:37 So it feels a lot like the gags were written separate of the film
02:40 and then just kind of shoehorned in there.
02:42 I also don't think that you would enjoy this film as much
02:46 if you weren't a football fan.
02:48 Looking at those scores then, I'm interested to know,
02:51 is 6 out of 10, 61%, that sort of area,
02:54 is it harsh? Is it underrated? What do you think?
02:57 I think with the right audience and the fact that it is just quite
03:00 a well-made film, that those scores are a little bit underrated.