Goal!

I wanted to hate Goal! (anyone mind if I chop off the exclamation mark for the rest of this review?). Every channel of fiction concerning football has let me down - books about the game suck, the televisual dramas are at best cliched nonsense and at worst rubbish, and each and every movie has been a big disappointment. From the lovably rubbish Escape to Victory, to an insight into Blades-loving Sean Bean's dreams in the dire When Saturday Comes, there really hasn't been a good soccer flick to speak of. The actual best was probably Bend it like Beckham, which I never think of as a football film. Well, it is, but you could substitute any activity frowned upon by a Sikh father - 'Booze it like Best', anyone? - for it to make the same message. Maybe that's why warm-hearted treacle like There's only one Jimmy Grimble remains watchable to me. It's terrible bobbins, but then I don't ask much whenever a film connected with football dribbles into view.

And then there's Goal, which ought to be the worst of the lot. Unashamably hackneyed, in bed with the Premiership and committing the cardinal sin of asking professional footballers to act, you know exactly what you're getting before you hand your monies over, and you know it's not likely to be inspiring. Nor is it. Yet I have to confess I was hooked. I could have carefully removed my brain before seeing it, such were its intellectual demands, but as harmless entertainment goes Goal turned out to be a 90-minute (plus extra time) thrill ride, and as a Middlesbrough fan, I can't say that very often.

To claim football films fail because nothing replicates the game's drama like the real thing is to spin out a cliche worthy of Andy Gray at his most excited, but it's true. How can fiction hope to rise above Liverpool's comeback from being three down to AC Milan in last seasons' European Cup final, or Rio Ferdinand's drug-testing scandal, or the Munich tragedy? Only one story remains to be told - the hero's rise to stardom, one that culminates in him scoring the winner for his team. In When Saturday Comes, Bean wins the FA Cup for Sheffield United against Man Yoo. Jimmy Grimble does practically the same with his school team. It's the universal soccer story, one told so many times that little else exists. Goal follows the same arc in taking us through the career of one Santiago Munez.

By all accounts, this is the first in a three-part epic, sanctioned by FIFA and taking in stages of Munez's football life, from his early days as a raw talent in Los Angeles through to eventual World Cup glory. In part one, Munez is introduced as a kid glued to his ball. Scratching out an existence in a Mexican slum, his family shatter any tranquility when they transport themselves illegally into the USA. Years later, and our young hero works as both a gardener/handyman for rich people, and as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Dad wants to buy his own truck and start his own gardening business, but Santiago has bigger dreams. Playing for the local side gives him a chance to show off his real talents, as a gifted footballer shooting well below his weight, though for 'shooting' read 'step overs, showboating, nutmegging, and all those other individual tricks that make him a near replica of Cristiano Ronaldo, as though Old Trafford's Portuguese wunderkind is the epitome of soccer sublimity'.

One week, Munez is spotted by Glen Foy, an ex-pro and occasional scout. Like many who watch him play, Foy is slack-jawed enough by Santiago's talent to engineer a trial at Newcastle United. Soon enough, your man is there, alternating cheesy quotes ('Toon Army? As in Looney Tunes?') with his efforts to wow Wenger-esque manager Erik Dornhelm, gain the respect of his teammates and win the heart of lovely nurse, Roz Harmison.

You already know how things are going to work out, of course. I don't suppose I need to slap a Spoiler Warning at the head of this review to say simply that they do. However, it's in the excution of all this that Goal delivers, and delivers well. That FIFA blessing has turned out to be exactly that, granting the film makers exclusive access to club dressing rooms, personnel and stadia. Once Munez arrives in Newcastle, we see him hob nob with the likes of Shearer, Kluivert and Dyer, wander freely around St James Park and become immersed in the real world of English football. The splicing in of genuine players with actors gives the movie a feel of authenticity. Where many other films failed simply on the poor reproduction of match action by thespians, here there are stars of the game in abundance. Stephen Gerrard tracks Munez. Real and fake Newcastle players try and force Frank Lampard off the ball.

It's all told against a backdrop of slick editing and a Britrock soundtrack. Perennial favourites Oasis and the Stone Roses are played alongside newer turns like Kasabian to provide a crowd-pleasing thump in time with some really fast paced and good looking action scenes. So at times Goal plays like an extended advert for the Premiership - it's almost certain that Sky Sports have used each of these tunes at some point when delivering their own loud, American-influenced promotions. At least the matches look good, and that's a start.

In terms of acting and characterisation, things fall apart a little. Kuno Becker makes for an agreeable lead, but it's clear most of the training has gone on his ball skills rather than the way he spills out a deft line. As Roz, Anna Friel has little to do other than occasionally deliver her words in a wayward Geordie accent. The part doesn't require much, which is a pity. Brookside showed Friel could take on challenging roles, yet since then she appears to have landed tabloid headlines rather than parts with any juice. Elsewhere, Stephen Dillane is affable enough as Munez's kindly surrogate father Foy, and Iures make for a suitably enigmatic Dornhelm. Santiago's fictional teammates are an uninspiring bunch creatively. As he fights to break into the reserves he comes across (i) a Roy Keanealike clogger who is essentially artless and therefore jealous of Munez's talents (ii) your typical salt of the earth type who befriends Santiago (iii) Gavin Harris, who has set the club back £8m and leads a playboy lifestyle that gets him and others into trouble. Like 'Champagne' Charlie Nicholas, Gavin isn't good for you, but you end up focusing on his antics at the expense of everyone else. It helps that his heart is in the right place, even if his personal story is a warning to other talents who end up winning multi-million pound contracts and not knowing what to do with all that loose change.

Another plotline concerns Santiago's asthma. He takes an inhaler before every game, but for reasons largely unknown (and not explained very well) he chooses to hide the fact from his Newcastle pals. Sure enough, just before his big break kickabout his inhaler is crushed, leaving him useless and nearly dropped in one of the film's numerous crisis points. As a plot device, it doesn't work too well, and it's not clear what the movie is trying to say - that having asthma is something to be ashamed of?

Somehow, the story holds together, our hero learning various things about himself and his new profession along the way. He also meets various real professionals, who give varying performances before the cameras. Alan Shearer is a natural, Zinedine Zidane has nothing to do and Raul manages to look fairly comfortable in his jokey cameo. David Beckham fares worst, sounding horribly stilted - you would think he'd be a natural by now, but he clearly needs to hold on to the day job.

There's some unfortunate cheese thrown in along the way, coming at the right moments to remind you this is a Hollywood film and not a dramatisation of some of English football's ills - millionaire players, manipulative agents, etc. These moments jar, but they don't ruin the fun. I thought Goal was a blast, a canny mixture of Dream Team's soap opera narrative and your nearest kids' comic strip about heroic, honest working class lads making their way to the top of the game. Far from perfect, but hardly an object of hate either.