Next Goal Wins – Review

Release Date – 26th December 2023, Cert – 12, Run-time – 1 hour 44 minutes, Director – Taika Waititi

A grumpy football coach (Michael Fassbender) is sent from America to coach the American Samoan national team, labelled the worst in the world.

When it was announced that Taika Waititi would be adapting 2014 documentary Next Goal Wins, the story of the world’s worst football team seemed like prime territory for him. Taking the team who once lost 31-0 in a World Cup qualifier and with the help of a coach from America, Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender), hoped to no longer be at the bottom of the world rankings. I therefore feels odd that the writer-director’s (co-writing with Iain Morris) latest feels like someone else has tried to make a Taika Waititi film, without the same heart or humour.

Instead of focusing on the American Samoan team, perhaps closer to his usual ‘outsider’ focus, Waititi lets Rongen lead the film. For much of the first half the joke of the familiar underdog story is how different life seems to be, how ‘odd’ the ways of American Samoa are compared to home. The terrain of the humour constantly feels as if it’s been covered multiple times before, meaning that it rarely takes off. While as a whole things may be likable the laughs aren’t present, only raising a mild chuckle every so often.

When it comes to the team themselves only one or two characters are given their moments, with some pushed further back as things develop. The main representative for the group is transgender (commonly called fa’afafine in American Samoa) woman Jaiyah (Kaimana). While getting some more development in the third act, where the real biggest clichés come in, most of the initial conversation with and around Jaiyah appears to revolve around her gender identity when one or two lines of dialogue could easily do the trick. It almost feels as if the film is trying to clear something up that doesn’t need to be. Eventually meaning that the wider team are simply a group of almost faceless, unnamed people with a select few getting some lines of dialogue to impact on their cynical coach.

Things move along in generally watchable fashion – dropping appearances and narration from Waititi’s seemingly goofy priest (not a patch on his vicar from Hunt For The Wilderpeople) sporting a giant horseshoe moustache, as soon as he turns to the camera with a ‘I didn’t see you there’ at the start of the film you pretty much know what you’re in for for the next 104 minutes. Over the course of two years Next Goal Wins was delayed a handful of times and went through a handful of reported reshoots and changes, at one point it seemed that Disney and Fox Searchlight were uncertain as to what to do with it. While watching, the film certainly feels as if it had something of a long journey to the screen, particularly during more sketch-like moments such as teams challenging each other before a match, as if trying to capture Anchorman and Dodgeball.

Not bad so as to have deserved such a long delay, but certainly just fine due to suffering the bumps of convention along the way. The most surprising detail is probably Waititi’s name in the credits, and popping up on screen every now and then. Some recurring faces from his previous films may appear here (including Rachel House, Rhys Darby and a key role for Oscar Kightley as the head of Football Federation American Samoa) but as a whole this feels as if someone else had tried to make an underdog story. Fine and conventional, but very likely quite forgettable.

Whilst generally fine as a lightly amusing, if familiar, underdog story you can’t help but feel some disappointment when you see Waititi’s name in the credits after a film that’s had none of his usual spin. Perhaps suffering most from focusing on the coach rather than the team he leads and you should be supporting.