★★★

If you can’t be the best in the world, there’s no shame in being the worst. Somebody has to be. A ranking’s a ranking, after all, and is it not better to have that place in history than none at all. When it comes to international football, American Samoa proved themselves a contender for rock bottom back in 2001. They lost 31-0 to Australia. Two decades on, it’s surely a dubious honour for the team to find themselves subject to the Taika Waititi treatment. Not that the team’s record breaking loss is Waititi’s focus here. Following the lead of Mike Brett and Steve Jamison’s superior 2014 documentary, of the same name, Next Goal Wins concerns the hiring of Thomas Rongen as beleaguered coach some ten years later. Nothing like a white saviour to get the drama going.

As the film has it, Rongen was sent to American Samoa not for the benefit of the island’s hapless football team but rather his own shipwrecked wellbeing. Divorce, a hot temper and tormenting grief can do that to a man. Michael Fassbender may not be an especially likeable Rongen but looks every bit the haggard alcoholic demanded of him. The team had only to score, he had to turn his whole life around. Cameos by Elizabeth Moss and Will Arnett, as his ex and her new beau, effectively bookend Rongen’s journey from the pits to rehabilitation. Naturally, it’s transformational, inspirational, perhaps even motivational, stuff; albeit, familiar, unconvincing and a little passé. Once you’ve seen Cool Runnings, you’ve seen them all.

It’s a shame really that Rongen’s arc proves to be so principal a focus of the film. Especially when such a vibrantly interesting community simmers, underused, around him. This is less evident by virtue of Waititi’s approach, which occasionally borders on the belittling, than the conviction of his game ensemble. Oscar Kightley has terrific fun as the deadpan head of the local football association, Tavita, while David Fane makes for a thoroughly wet scene stealer as his hopeless first team coach.

It is, however, non-binary actor Kaimana who comes the closest in the film to genuine pathos. The Samoan local plays Faʻafafine player Jaiyah Saelua, the first trans woman to compete in a World Cup qualifier and a trailblazer to this day. Again, there are faults in Waititi’s, admittedly well intentioned, approach but Kaimana’s assurance is impressive. While embellishments frill the truth of events here, putting Jaiyah front and centre does much to heighten the poignance of the film’s inevitable grand finale. It’s all very ‘back of the net’.

And yet, Waititi appears less interested in the emotional core of his story than its potential for quirky absurdities. There’s plenty of them. American Samoa’s blanket 20mph speed limit, the fact that everyone seems to have a dozen jobs, and the obligation to drop and pray each time the island bells gong…all laid out, ripe for the comic picking. There’s no doubting a script by Waititi and Iain Morris – of Inbetweeners renown – nails some hearty laughs but where Next Goal Wins has the whimsy of Wilderpeople, it lacks the heart of the Hunt. Honolulu makes for a gorgeous backdrop nonetheless.

T.S.