The Beautiful Game: Earns a silver

The Beautiful Game (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13 for profanity, drug references and fleeting partial nudity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.26.24

The past couple of months have been quite educational, with respect to sport I’d never previously encountered: first adventure racing, in Arthur the King; and now the Homeless World Cup.

 

The bulk of England's Homeless World Cup team — from left, Jason (Sheyi Cole),
Cal (Kit Young), Nathan (Callum Scott Howells), Kevin (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and
Aldar (Robin Nazari) — watch with a blend of awe and disgust as their newest
teammate struts his stuff.

The latter is the public side of the Homeless World Cup Association, co-founded in 2001 by Mel Young and Harald Schmied, as a means of advocating for a global solution to homelessness. Players must be at least 16; have not taken part in previous Homeless World Cup tournaments; and be either homeless, asylum seekers, street vendors or active in drug/alcohol rehab treatment following homelessness.

The playing field follows the rules of street soccer, on a pitch 72-by-52 feet (as opposed to international soccer’s 110-120 by 70-80 yards). The result is a faster, high-action and high-scoring format. Annual tournaments began in 2003, until canceled by Covid; they resumed in 2023, with that year’s World Cup held right here in Sacramento. (Would that I had known!)

 

Writer Frank Cottrell Boyce has been trying to get his script made into a film for more than a decade; this heartwarming little film helmed by director Thea Sharrock is the long-awaited result. (In a total change of pace, she also directed Wicked Little Letters, also reviewed this week.)

 

Boyce’s characters are entirely fictitious, but the environment in which they’re placed — notably, the ramp-up to World Cup play, and the challenges faced by typical participants — is rigorously accurate. As a cherry on top, many of the players in non-speaking roles are former Homeless World Cup participants, who now are no longer homeless.

 

The story begins as Mal Bradley (Bill Nighy) — a retired footballer, now manager of England’s Homeless team — readies players for his 12th shot at top position, with this year’s tournament to be played in Rome. The team includes Nathan (Callum Scott Howells), Cal (Kit Young), Jason (Sheyi Cole), Aldar (Robin Nazari) and Kevin (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor). As the film begins, Mal persuades a reluctant Vinny (Micheal Ward) to complete the half-dozen.

 

This doesn’t go over well with the others, who’ve bonded during (we assume) several preceding months. Living down to their worst expectations, Vinny has a chip on his shoulder the size of Montana, and clearly believes himself superior to the others (which proves true, but is beside the point). Worse yet, Vinny contemptuously feels no need to acknowledge that there’s no “I” in “team,” and he rebuffs efforts at kumbaya friendliness.

 

In short, he’s a horse’s ass.

 

Enola Holmes 2: The game's still afoot!

Enola Holmes 2 (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and bloody images

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

I concluded my review of this film’s 2020 predecessor by expressing the hope that it would be popular enough to generate a sequel.

 

My wish has been granted.

 

Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown), justifiably pleased with herself, after deducing one
of the puzzles on her older brother Sherlock's "clue board," favors us viewers with a
smile of satisfaction.

Enola Holmes 2 is every bit as stylish, witty and entertaining as the young heroine’s first on-screen escapade. Almost all the major stars have stepped back into their characters; director Harry Bradbeer and writer Jack Thorne also have returned. The one holdout is Sherlock Holmes’ older brother Mycroft, and he isn’t missed; Sam Claflin made him too much of a boorish crank in the previous entry.

Unlike that first film, this one isn’t based on one of author Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes books; Bradbeer and Thorne have concocted an original tale that feels right in this young heroine’s wheelhouse. Better yet, this adventure places these fictitious characters within an actual 1888 major event (and, unless you’re a scholar of 19th century British history, you’re not likely to see it coming, until revealed within the end credits).

 

Following the successful resolution of her first case, now a bit older and wiser, Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) has optimistically set up her own private detective agency. Alas, all the adverts in the city cannot stop the look of dismay that crosses the face of would-be clients, when they realize Enola is (horrors!) a young woman.

 

Worse yet, on the few occasions she’s able to retain somebody long enough to explain that she did, after all, solve a high-profile case, the response is invariably something along the lines of “Didn’t Sherlock Holmes actually solve that?”

 

Disappointed beyond words, Enola prepares to close things down. Cue the last-minute arrival of young Bessie (Serrana Su-Ling Bliss, cute as a button), a penniless “matchstick girl” who works atrocious hours in a match-making factory with her sister Sarah (Hannah Dodd) and scores of other orphaned girls. Sarah has gone missing; Bessie hopes Enola will be able to find her.

 

With Bessie’s help, Enola poses as a new matchstick worker. She meets Mae (Abbie Hern), one of the older matchstick girls; and quickly runs afoul of the factory’s foreboding foreman, Mr. Crouch (Lee Boardman, appropriately ill-tempered). Employing quick wits and a handy diversion, Enola sneaks upstairs and sees factory owner Henry Lyon (David Westhead) in a meeting with Treasury Minister Lord Charles McIntyre (Tim McMullan) and his secretary, Mira Troy (Sharon Duncan-Brewster).

 

A high-ranking Cabinet official, discussing something with the owner of a grubby matchstick factory?

 

Odd, that.