chaitankrish
the film contains boring script,bad direction,bad screenplay no proper story this movie is only propaganda movie by A FIFA about the history of the FIFA. This film is a metaphor for everything wrong with FIFA. It paints FIFA administrators as saints, which is ironic if you're aware of how corrupt FIFA is. They act as if they do everything for the love of the game, and not caring about money. The script is terrible, with nothing else but propaganda throughout the movie. FIFA were even allowed to edit the script to their choosing. If you like watching propaganda, then this is the film for you. Otherwise, distance yourself from the movie!but if you are serious FIFA fan and interested in knowing history of FIFA then you can watch the movie for sake of general knowledge. the first 20 minutes of Gérard Depardieu play is good and interesting because of neat historic Reconstruction
Ken McElhaney
There is very little to say about "United Passions" that has not been covered in other reviews. However, the biggest crime committed other than the celebration of FIFA as this above-board, honest organization thanks to Sepp Blatter (not), is that the film itself is dreadfully boring.Essentially, United Passions starts with the beginnings of FIFA as they must contend with racist English people (their view, not mine) in the 1920s and works its way through the decades until the end when South Africa is awarded the 2010 World Cup, something we now know to be fixed.Virtually every scene that is not stock footage of the World Cup games is a meeting between executives. While there might be some that find well dressed people muttering in low tones for two hours to be riveting, I was not so moved.Furthermore, the film makes being a FIFA president appear to be the most boring, most uninteresting job on the planet and even the fancy locations like Rio for example cannot crack a smile for anyone. Sam Neill and Tim Roth who carry most of the picture seem half-unconscious throughout.Even the framing device of kids playing a soccer game is dull, despite the only girl on either team (playing the goalie) who apparently cannot block a shot, suddenly takes the ball down the pitch like Pele and nails a 20 foot shot. She is carried off the pitch by players from BOTH teams and yet even that was boring.Even as a propaganda device, this is a horrible film. It's little wonder that it made less than $1,000 on its opening weekend in the US, a figure that is virtually impossible to obtain, yet it is somehow fitting for both FIFA and this film.
ferdinand1932
For over a century movies have been fascinated with nefarious enterprises. The Mafia movies - which at the time seemed a long commercial bet - proved that audiences really liked to watch the internal workings of an organization, from how it generated its revenue through to how it dealt with opponents and new business rivals.In a sense "United Passions" is like that: not quite "Donnie Brasco", or "Godfather II" true, but the drama and excitement of making uniform rules and regulations for playing football, or the power plays at board meetings and facing down political oppression n Europe, not to say the daring of Blatter offering sponsorships deals all makes for some pretty heady cinema.That's not to say that its all good. It really isn't. The historical evolution of FIFA is related like a child's essay and that leads to a collective groan, much as any teacher faced with such mediocre aspirations would do as well. The script tends to platitudes and an overbearing pomposity. A film that has a barely concealed sneer at the English is paradoxically in English. As spoken by some actors it is obvious they are not fully comfortable with its stress patterns and cadences.At times it teases with audience expectations as when Blatter holds a roadside rendezvous with another official and they discuss the implications of the Russian-US enmity in the late 1970s. It's scene we've all seen often enough: just as Fredo is dealt with by Michael in the boathouse, and usually presages a hit on an unsuspecting person. None, however occurs. The flirtation with the worst instances of the Bond movie canon lead nowhere, of course, because this is a vanity corporate movie, full of sound and bureaucratic business cant, and naturally, signifying nothing.
Andres Salama
A FIFA financed movie about the history of the FIFA. It is at least quite unusual to have a sports movie that is not about sportsmen but about sports administrators (Moneyball is the only one that comes to my mind). Tim Roth plays FIFA president Sepp Blatter as a honest, efficient if tough administrator (you really need to have a very huge ego to finance a movie where you are the hero, though, as one friend told me, at least Blatter had the sense not to hire Brad Pitt to play himself). The production values are fine, which is to be expected given the reported budget of almost 30 million dollars. Not a great film obviously, but not as bad as expected. It is quite entertaining if naturally very one sided. With Gerard Depardieu (in an enjoyable performance) and Sam Reilly as former FIFA presidents Jules Rimet and Joao Havelange and Thomas Kretschmann as Horst Dassler, head of sports apparel giant Adidas. Amusingly, the movie has a quite crude anti– English tone: every English character in the movie looks bad (England and the other British sides initially refused to join FIFA, seeing it as an upstart organization).
AD
