Saipan <\/p>\n
\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 \ue9d7 <\/p>\n
Director: Glenn Leyburn, Lisa Barros D\u2019Sa<\/p>\n
Cert: None<\/p>\n
Starring: Steve Coogan, \u00c9anna Hardwicke, Jack Hickey, Harriet Cains, Niall McNamee, Alice Lowe, Alex Murphy<\/p>\n
Running Time: 1 hr 31 mins<\/p>\n
We begin with archival audio of radio pundits and ordinary citizens commenting on the notorious conflict between Roy Keane<\/a> and Mick McCarthy<\/a> in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup. One citizen notes that Irish people were treating it like the death of Princess Diana and wonders if we will eventually wake up and think ourselves deranged.<\/p>\n More than two decades have passed, and the subject is still deemed fit subject for a motion picture from the directors of Good Vibrations, the film. Steve Coogan<\/a> is the lugubrious Republic of Ireland manager. \u00c9anna Hardwicke<\/a> is the volatile midfielder. <\/p>\n Domestic viewers will detect metaphors for conflicting attitudes to post-Tiger Ireland in the ebb and flow of the dispute. It remains to be seen whether those outside the country will have any understanding what the fuss was about.<\/p>\n Beware spoilers ahead? You may as well warn readers they are about to hear who won the second World War. Weeks before the start of the tournament, in Japan and South Korea, McCarthy brought his squad to a training camp on Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands. <\/p>\n Conditions were far from ideal: rutted pitch, indifferent catering, no sun cream. \u201cIt would be better if we had footballs,\u201d McCarthy grudgingly admits when those vital items are discovered missing. Keane\u2019s objections to the manager\u2019s handling of the crisis eventually led to his leaving (or being expelled from) the squad. Germany lost the second World War.<\/p>\n The two leads wisely do not go for straight impersonations. Hardwicke, a lankier, less coiled presence than his fellow Corkman, gives us regimental rectitude rather than simmering fury. That marginally calmer energy causes his final meltdown at a team meeting \u2013 some quotes from which have entered the vernacular \u2013 to seem all the more disturbing.<\/p>\n Coogan has, perhaps, the harder task and, though he remains as diligent as ever, he can\u2019t quite fashion one of his signature oddballs from all that neutral energy. Alice Lowe, as Mrs McCarthy, sums up the Pooterish creation when, as Mick is heading for the airport, she reminds him not to forget \u201cAuntie Pat\u2019s Cointreau\u201d. If Paul Fraser\u2019s script had nudged a bit harder in that direction, Mick might have ended up as Coronation Street comic relief. <\/p>\n The film looks, on balance, to favour Keane until he threatens to leave the squad. On this representation of events (I make no comment on accuracy), the organisation did reflect an old Ireland of lower expectations. \u201cYou want to hear why everyone loves the Irish?\u201d Keane says. \u201cBecause we\u2019re not a threat.\u201d News footage of the England operation reveals, embarrassingly, a professionalism missing from our own camp.<\/p>\n When talk moves to Keane\u2019s possible evacuation, however, Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D\u2019Sa, skilful directors of good actors, guide our attention to McCarthy\u2019s simple decency. \u201cOther \u2026 people \u2026 matter!\u201d he eventually throws back at a raging Keane.<\/p>\n Supporters of both men \u2013 the nation is still divided \u2013 will find plenty to agree with and plenty to rail at as the film drifts towards a conclusion that will astonish nobody who was alive at the time.<\/p>\n