Mike Bassett: England Manager, 11 Jul 2005

By	Rich Milligan (Thatcham, Berkshire) - See all my reviews

Make in a spoof documentary style it follows the story of a lower division football manager who gets given a chance at the England football manager's job. The film takes more than a swipe at the infamous "Do I Not Like That" documentary that was made about Graham Taylor's unsuccessful time in charge of the England team and is full of the characters that inhabited the management of the team at that time. You have Bradley Walsh, now of Coronation Street fame playing the Phil Neal "yes man" and the macintoshed figure of assistant manager Lonnie Urquart or should we say Laurie McMenamy. There are also more than a few recognisable cameos amongst the football players, but I won't spoil the fun of guessing these! Other characters that pop up are Phil Jupitus as a fleet street sport hack, Martin Bashir as the documentary presenter and the gorgeous Amanda Redman as Bassett's wife.

Apart from the comic element, what the film also does quite nicely is analyse the illogical football fan in us all. Bassett goes from hero to villain depending upon results with little concern to how the victory is obtained. The country forgives Bassett's drunken antics during the world cup as long as England progress to the later stages. No matter how badly the England team are playing, thousands of fans still turn out to watch and support.

The only complaints I have is that I do have concerns to how well the film will age, will the relevance of the film diminish with the years and become almost incomprehensible to an audience who know nothing about the Taylor era, or perhaps on the other hand, it will become something of a accurate historic portrayal of the time. The other downside to the film is the disappointing ending; the story is wrapped up in a matter of minutes and comes to a real anti-climax.

Final mention to the star performance in the film of the fantastic Ricky Tomlinson. He absolutely steals the show and really shows of what a depth of talent this man has.

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