Is it me, or has legendary Kiwi cut-up Taika Watiti lost his edge a bit? I only ask because after a string of heartfelt, indie comedies, and the fact that he made the best Thor movie by a country mile, there seems to be a bit of a rare disconnect these days between the man and his audience.
It started with Thor: Love And Thunder, I suppose, a Marvel entry that not only failed to recapture Watiti’s trademark pizzazz of his previous dealings with the God of Thunder, but actually had me seriously worrying about the state of the MCU as a whole. All the things that we formally loved about the New Zealand auteur that we celebrated in such films as What We Do In The Shadows, Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Jojo Rabbit had suddenly seemed strangely irritating as his trademark humour no longer seemed as charming as it once had.
However, retreating back into the realms of more personal comedy with real life sporting tale, Next Goal Wins, can Watiti hope to recapture his previous form and put one solidly into the back of the net?
Dutch Anerican football coach Thomas Rongen is facing an unenviable choice: either be fired after a recent poor showing of his last team, or accept a placement training the American Samoa national team in time to enter in the world cup qualifiers. As with all things, there’s a catch: not only are the American Samoa team absolutely dreadful, they also hold the world record of conceding the most goals in a single match in World Cup history and 31 – 0 to Australia is nothing to be sneezed at.
Arriving in American Samoa, the highly strung Rongen immediately is taken aback at how laid back everyone is and is welcomed warmly by the eternally optimistic Travita, the team’s manager who doesn’t want much from his new coach, except for just one single goal to be scored by his team. Soon after, Rongen gets to see what exactly he has to work with and to be honest, it isn’t looking good as the team contains a bunch of incredibly undisciplined players which also includes Travita’s suspitious son and transitioning player, Jaiyah Saelua whom the coach has initial issues with.
Training goes about a well as you’d expect (shit) and Rongen begins to realise that this island full of eccentrics probably have little chance of winning the starting coin toss, let alone actually scoring – but the real reason he took this dead end job to begin with is to try and win a second chance with his separated wife, Gail.
Of course, not only is this a sports movie about a bunch of losers, but it’s a based on true events, so after Rongen finally understands the culture and the mindset of the gentle people hes found himself surrounded by, he finally manages to get them into a groove and working as an actual team. Qualifying for the 2014 world cup is frankly as unlikely as Pepper Pig knowingly eating a bacon sandwich, but if the team can just score that one goal, miracles may happen.
Surely an accurate scale of how much Watiti’s popularity levels may have dropped can be measured in the pitch of groans from the audience during the opening seconds of the film as the filmmaker himself welcomes us into the movie dressed as a priest with protruding teeth and a Yosemite Sam moustache. It’s a far cry from the days when the cameoing director could bring the house down while appearing as a Fanta obsessed reverend, a mild mannered rock warrior, or a child’s manifestation of Hitler, but there’s a real sense that Watiti’s days of trying to steal the movie from his own cast no longervseens as charming as they used to, especially since he personally drove fan favourite character Korg into the ground buy massively overdoing him in his Thor sequel. Thankfully, the director spends the vast majority of the rest of the film behind the camera where he can do the most good, but even though Next Goal Wins still contains that distinctive sunny disposition that comes with the director’s other opuses, it oddly feels like his laidback style has become so relaxed, it’s become vertical. The story of a person or persons who are stratospherically shit at their chosen sport has always been a dependable slice of comedy gold, but a real problem the film has is that it follows maybe too closely in the studded footsteps of other movies that have come before. After all, the true story of the abysmal American Samoan team, desperate for redemption after their staggering loss was already told in the 2014 documentary, which was also called Next Goal Wins; but if that wasn’t enough, Watiti is happy to cruise in the wake of that other, famous, true life underdog story – no, not Eddie The Eagle – I obviously mean Cool Runnings. It weirdly seems that the notoriously mischievous filmmaker is playing it safe and a lot of the supporting characters are just reheated, simple, big hearted eccentrics that have regularly popped up previously in Watiti’s filmography.
However, while Next Goal Wins feels decidedly by the numbers for a film made by someone who defiantly stamped his own mark on the superhero movie, that’s not to say that Taika still can’t rattle the odd ribcage with some masterfully deployed jokes. A running gag that everyone on the island has more than one job constantly baffles Michael Fassbender’s uptight straight man and MVP Oscar Knightly steals the film as the ever hopeful manager, even when a losing bet requires that numerous pairs of boobs (eleven to be exact) are drawn onto his face.
Another thing that Watiti has managed to retain is that sense of genuine warmth he has for his subjects, even when he’s taking the piss out of them, with the rather delicate subject of Jaiyah transition being handled particularly sweetly when you find out that a “Fa’afafine”, is traditionally recognized gender in Samoan culture and while Rongen’s gradual acceptance of this may be reduced to a simple, A to B sideplot, it still pays due respect.
While still fun and optimistic, there’s still a sense that the director is resolutely not in a risk taking mood, turning in a standard underdog, sports film with as little surprises as possible. You’ll laugh here and have the odd heartstrings tugged there, but if Taika doesn’t deliver something a little fresher soon, he’ll be in danger of conceding a penalty.
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