Bookended by to-the-camera appeals from executive producer Colin Farrell,Kicking It initially promises to be little more than a sports channel infomercial – no surprise that this Hi-Def documentary about The Homeless World Cup was acquired by ESPN after its January premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. But there’s a good deal more to the film besides star-sanctioned awareness raising.
Co-directors Susan Koch and Jeff Werner’s camera circles the globe, focusing on a handful of soccer, née football players from Ireland, the United States, Afghanistan, Spain, Russia, and Africa, their various personalities and histories making for a microcosmic representation of their respective countries. Koch and Werner follow them from training to team selection to the tournament itself (held in Cape Town, South Africa), but there’s little interest in building up to the big game. Rather, Koch and Werner defuse the standard sports movie sense of suspense so that the temperaments of the players and their teams shine through. Russia is in it, defiantly, to win; the United States is all hot-headed bluster, blinded by their sense of entitlement; Spain is subdued, more interested in emphasizing the players’ love of the game over any win/loss obsession. Through their personal struggles and epiphanies (a star African player continually angers his coach by missing each and every penalty kick; an Afghan team member finds first love with a South American girl), Koch and Werner create an effective silent dialogue between various and sundry body politics – diplomacy and activism through the seemingly simple act of kicking a ball. The overall winners are promised mass exposure, though Koch and Werner recognize that it’s more the personal triumphs that carry the day, and that these do not necessarily result, in this tumultuous real world, in happy endings.
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-Pictures, cast, links, and blog for Kicking It from AOL True Stories
