Review of Mike Bassett: England Manager

Introduction

I`d heard of Mike Bassett: England Manager, but wasn`t sure what to expect when it can through my letterbox last week, courtesy of DVD Reviewer...

The film stars Ricky Tomlinson as Mike Bassett, the manager of Norwich City who win the equivalent of the League Cup - shortly afterwards, the England Manager suffers a heart attack, with just three qualifying games left to secure the team`s place in the World Cup in Brazil. With none of the big names interested in the position, the FA turn to Mike Bassett to lead the team, and the nation forward...

The film is a comedy spoof, filed as a documentary with a film crew following Bassett around for a year, seeing what being the England Manager actually involves (including dealing a mob of tabloid journalists after the manager`s scalp and a group of over paid players!).

Video

The video is presented in non-anamorphic widescreen with a ratio of 1.85:1 - so it`s time to dust off the zoom button if you own a widescreen TV. Obviously the drop in resolution caused by not using an anamorphic widescreen format immediately puts the picture at a disadvantage, but it`s not too bad, and doesn`t suffer from the shimmering often seen. There is no sign of dirt of grain on the print, which manages to provide a reasonable level of detail despite the shortcomings of the format.

It really is a shame that the films comes in non-anamorphic widescreen, because the visuals are actually pretty good - the crew took over Wembley for four days just before it was closed down and filmed the cast playing football, before superimposing the crowds into the empty stands - and it looks very convincing. The scene of Bassett walking to the dugout for the first time is in fact Kevin Keegan doing the same - with Tomlinson superimposed over the top - it looks great!

Audio

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, but for 99% of the movie you wouldn`t know it, as most of the sound comes from the front centre channel and the front stereo pair. The preamble features the front centre channel only, with no LFE and I was worried that the rest of the film would sound tinny, but when the titles roll properly, the front stereo pair kick into life and everything sounds ok.

In the commentary, the director explains that they used a lapel microphone on Tomlinson during filming for authenticity, and often used this to pick up the voices of other characters - this aides the documentary style and keeps the movie continually interesting.

The dialogue remains clear and understandable throughout the film.

Features

The extras consist of a director`s commentary, which is very interesting, and reveals all the tricks used to make the movie - this is well worth listening to, Also on offer are a number of deleted scenes, some of which rather amusing, and the original ending.

Conclusion

At the top of this review, I said that I wasn`t sure what to expect from Mike Bassett: England Manager and I can report that it was a very entertaining, amusing spoof movie that was well worth watching.

The film succeeds on all levels - the documentary style works brilliantly, providing constant interest and entertainment throughout the film. The cast is great - Tomlinson is superb as Bassett and the support is similarly great. You can put a real name to all the players, which adds greatly to the amusement as each one behaves exactly as you might expect - and the pack of journalists hungry for a scalp are hilarious throughout. The script is also spot-on, with plenty of laughs coming from all directions. The visual effects are also very good, giving the film an authentic feel - in fact the only disappointment with the disc was the lack of an anamorphic widescreen transfer.

Overall, this provide to be one of the most surprisingly enjoyable films of the year so far, and well worthy of the "The best British film since Bridget Jones" accolade from the advertising blurb.