Review: Kicking It (2008) ***
Najib: From Afghanistan to South Africa in Kicking It
It’s easy to look at a homeless person and see nothing but a dead ender. It’s easy to forget that these strangers are human beings. However, a single moment in time does not necessarily tell us who a person has been nor does it project who they will be in the future. A lifetime isn’t a straight trajectory from A to B. There are always ups and downs.
Susan Koch’s new documentary Kicking It tells the stories of seven homeless men who are definitely on a downward slide. Though they come from countries around the globe and they’re homeless for different reasons, they’re all united for one purpose: to compete for their countries in the annual Homeless World Cup of soccer.
Watching these souls who are homeless, but not quite hopeless, is a moving reminder that lives can be turned around when people are simply given a tangible dream to hold on to.
Scotsman Mel Young and Austrian Harald Schmied founded The Homeless World Cup in 2001 as a way of helping a segment of the worldwide population estimated in some quarters to number one billion. Our story takes place in Cape Town, South Africa in 2006 for the 4th annual Cup where 500 players from 48 countries play one another over a period of 7 days. Among these, Alex cleans toilets in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya while dreaming of becoming a professional soccer player. Craig is 19 years old, estranged from his family and living on the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina. Damien and Simon are recovering drug addicts from Dublin, Ireland. Jesus is a 63-year-old alcoholic and former bank robber living in a public shelter in Madrid, Spain. Najib, is a 19-year-old from Kabul, Afghanistan who lost much of his family to the Taliban and who remembers the local soccer stadium being used for public executions. Finally there is Slava, a Russian whose village fell on hard times after the fall of communism and who, unable to secure a residence permit in St. Petersburg, lives as an outcast who legally cannot hold a job or find a place to stay.
The men are a microcosm and we get to know them and we root for them to not only win their games, but to latch on to something and to use it as a springboard to correct the course of their lives. It’s a bittersweet story as some make it and some don’t, but it’s also a moving story. Unfortunately, it isn’t fully matched by the well intentioned but flawed filmmaking. It’s clear that Koch is looking to illustrate the global nature of the homeless problem by focusing on many people from many different places, but the shotgun approach tends to dilute the overall impact. The narrative would’ve been better served had it been pared down to include only the most dramatic stories.
A sharper focus also would’ve served to heighten the drama of the competition. Instead, as the story bounces from one player to the next and from one match to the next, the momentum becomes diffused. The awkward play by play doesn’t help either. Former MLS player Garth Lagerwey knows his stuff, but it sounds like he recorded his parts after the fact and the excitement feels artificial and forced. More conventional narration would’ve been more effective.
Finally, emphasizing fewer players would’ve allowed more time for a deeper look at those players’ personal lives and would’ve intensified the emotional core of the story. As it is, I was left wanting to know more about some of the players, particularly the Russian and the Irishmen, and less about some of the others. Additional information about the people who founded and organize the Cup would also have been welcome.
Despite these missteps, the basic human message of Kicking It shines through clearly. It gives a voice and a story to a class of people who are too often and too easily overlooked. It’s also a moving reminder that even those at the very bottom of the ladder are only one step away from being off it and that sometimes that first step makes all the difference in the world.
Kicking It opens today in New York and June 27 in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. If you’re interested in more information about the Homeless World Cup, you can find it here.
Kicking It. USA 2007 (released in 2008). Directed by Susan Koch. Edited by Jeff Werner. Narrated by Colin Farrell. Matches described by Garth Lagerwey. Music by Charlie Barnett. 1 hour 38 minutes. Not rated by the MPAA. 3 stars (out of 5)
Filed under: Reviews
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Intriguing film here and a most perceptive review Craig, even with that disclaimer that an examination of “fewer” players would have yielded even more incisive results. That makes much sense, methinks.
Something tells me our resident South African Nick Plowman will have a keen interest in this.
Craig, I’m curious—what was the last film that you awarded five stars to?
This is a problem that a lot of documentaries have, an understandable one. When you become immersed in the personal lives of people (which is the only effective way to make a documentary…if they don’t trust you they’ll never open up), you begin to feel obligated to them. Once it comes time to edit, in order to cut an entire story, you’re essentially saying to this one person whom you’ve spent months and years with that they don’t matter enough to be in the film. Indeed, the filmmaker probably realizes this problem, probably knows that certain sections needed to be cut. But at that juncture they have to make a choice - what is more important? The film, or the people who’ve trusted them with their lives and their stories? Not an easy decision to make at all. If I was in that situation, I would certainly choose the people over the film, including some stories that might bog things down simply for the sake of the subjects. I wouldn’t be rational enough to put the film before the people, especially if I valued the relationships that I had made. Nor do I think I could handle having those conversations…”Yeah, Juan, I know I spent a few months with you, but I’ve decided to cut your entire story out of the film. Have a nice life.” No thanks.
Still, the film stands or falls on it’s own, so I guess that’s the sacrifice that the filmmaker has to make in these situations.
I’ve seen this kicking around (ahem) at different festivals, but it never came here. Obviously, it’s right in my wheelhouse. Evan, your observations about attention on different subjects also affected the upcoming American Teen, according to the Q & A with Nanette Burnstein.
Ooh, I just got passes to a screener for American Teen next month, but so far I’ve heard nothing but good stuff about it. Perhaps it’s sins-of-obligation won’t be too egregious.
An excellent question Sam and by way of answering I’ll point you to the handy “review index” on the tab at the top of the page. You can see all the reviews alphabetically or sorted by rating.
If you’re one of those guys who likes to read ahead to see how it all turns out, I’ll tell you the only 5 star ratings I’ve given for a new release so far went to There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men.
Evan you make an excellent point about the filmmakers and I suspect that’s exactly what happened in this case. These are not stories a person with a soul could easily leave on the cutting room floor.
It’s related to something I struggled with even as a reviewer. Do I review the message or do I review the film? In this case, I erred on the side of the message and gave the film the benefit of a doubt I wouldn’t have given a narrative feature. At the same time I tried to be honest without being unnecessarily harsh.
Whether or not I was too forgiving I suppose is left to the viewer.
Well Craig, few could argue with annointing those two films with the highest rating!
It appears that your highest rated films for 2008 are STUCK, MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS and BAND’S VISIT. I can’t argue with MBN or BV getting those well-deserved ratings, and I am eager to see the former as soon as possible.
Back to 2007,I see you gave **** 1/2 to JESSE JAMES, again a most worthy annointment.
There are several films, had I reviewed them, that also would’ve gotten high ratings this year: Roman de Gare, OSS 117, Reprise and (coughcough) Speed Racer (cough) to name a few. As you can see I’ve been slacking on the review front so far this year.
I am hoping to see more reviews from you, and I’m sure we will, but running this site and navigating new postings and threads is a career in and of itself!!!
I haven’t seen ROMAN DE GARE, nor OSS 117, but I would completely agree with you on REPRISE, a film that Matthew, Joel, Alexander and others have also given very high marks to, if my memory serves me right.
Your memory serves you right and it serves you well.
As for reviews, my intention is to have them be the backbone of LiC, but the fact is they’re often the hardest things to write and my style requires at least a couple of days at best before I can get one up.
I’m usually in such a panic to produce at least an item a day, that sometimes I don’t save enough energy for the really creative stuff.
I’m working on it though and I’m getting better. Reviews used to take me a week.
Wow, a week? I don’t feel so bad any more, then. I think my Speed Racer review took around 7 hours, off and on, and that was a record for me. Oh, wait, I take that back. I did take me a week to knock out a review for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, and the irony is that I haven’t even posted it yet (umm…that is irony, right?).
On the challenge of reviewing a film at face value vs. reviewing what it wanted to be, I’m with you there, Craig. I just read an article on Tarsem Singh’s The Fall over at Roger Ebert’s site that has guaranteed I’ll give the film a positive review once I see it, no matter what. The effort and goodwill that went into it will just be too difficult to ignore - I won’t be able to divorce the film from the process through which it was created.
Yeah a week, give or take when you factor in slacking/germinating time. Also, I seem to be in the minority of people who need to write drafts of the longer pieces and then rewrite them at least once.
As for The Fall, I’d read an admiring piece about Tarsem and his efforts to get the film made AFTER I’d seen it and was underwhelmed. Had I been more in the know ahead of time, I would’ve been more enthusiastic even though it would’ve been the same movie. Weird how that works.
Why did I not see this review before? I must be going mad.
You are right Sam, I am very much interested in seeing this. Funny, most films involving or pertaining to the lives of South Africans seem to get released here only after they have made their away around the globe. I guess it all comes down to marketing etc.
Would like to catch this one whenever I can.
I snuck it in when you weren’t looking Nick. I wish it was a better doc. Oh well.