2023-12-19 23:43:00
In the hands of a less inspired Taika Waititi than usual, the true story of the worst team in the world proves tedious.
Inspired by real events dating back to 2001, of which a documentary with the same title (Next Goal Wins in English) was already made in 2014, Taika Waititi’s new colorful fantasy traces the attempted sports rescue by a closeted coach (Michael Fassbender) of the worst football team in the world: that of the Samoa Islands which lost a match 31 to 0 against the Australian opponent during the World Cup qualifiers for Oceania. Quite quickly, after two or three funny jokes like any team loser film contains, the tedious wins out: staging without nerves, no exultation comes to justify the loitering idleness, the jovial I-don’t-give-a-fuckism, not of sabotage effect relying on the inertia force of this fine team of draggers. Even the Magnificent Losers movie drags.
Finally, there is a not stupid way to see A Dream Team to avoid polite boredom: consider it as a washed-out version without the slightest auteurism of Pacifiction. Consider Fassbender as the peroxide alter ego of Magimel staying in the Leeward Islands, it’s playable with or without a ball. At this price we can smile at the very minor spectacle of this Dream Team, a beach film with a beach soccer trend. As in Pacifiction, the most captivating thing is its naive painting depicting a transgender character, an adjunct woman who gradually insinuates herself into the landscape until she ends up contaminating it with her exoticism, through her sole timid initiative: here Jaiyah, there Shannon.
A dream team by Taika Waititi, with Michael Fassbender, Kaimana… 1h45.
#dream #team #lets #football #Libération