United Passions — A Deep Dive into the worst film ever made? Pt 1–00:00–08:30
FIFA.
That acronymic name is evocative of so many things. The World Cup, corruption, the beautiful game, Jack Warner’s banking arrangements. But what it should stand for is this…
Fucking
Incompetent
Film
Abberation.
Yes, I’m talking about United Passions — the film they released to great fanfare in 2014. This is a film so bad that its box office return was 0.5% of the budget. This is a film so bad, that it’s lead star Tim Roth has never watched it and refuses to talk about it in interviews. This is a film so bad, that the director is quoted as saying:
“Now I’m seen as bad as the guy who brought AIDS to Africa or the guy who caused the financial crisis. My name is all over [this mess], and apparently I am a propaganda guy making films for corrupt people.”
Strong stuff from Frederic Auburtin there — although you’d be annoyed if Joe Kinnear kept calling you Gabriel.
So why the film? Why did FIFA, an absolute abomination of an organisation at the best of times, commit to this lunacy? It all comes back to good old Uncle Sepp Blatter of course.
Sepp wanted to release a film prior to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil that would celebrate the heroism of the early FIFA executives in shaping the modern game as it is today. Now I am not one to question the Great and Powerful Sepp, but I do have a list of questions regarding this?
- Has there ever been a film/TV series where the executives of an organisation are the heroes?
- If there has, have they been translated to celluloid as the most fucking boring people imaginable?
- How many cubic pounds of brass are Sepp Blatter’s balls, given he committed to a script hailing him as an anti-corruption hero despite the fact he was arrested for committing more fraud than most of Wall Street?
- Sam Neill being cast as Joao Havelange. WHAT?! The man looks like Prince Phillip fucked Emperor Palpetine in a middle management seminar.
5. Imagine having the whole game of football to focus on and coming up with a film celebrating ADMINISTRATION?! That’s like The Avengers focusing on a slightly angry man with a Robin Hood fetish….wait…..
6. Casting Gerard Depardieu in anything deserves to be questioned. I’ll probably do 10 questions on him later.
7. How does anyone involved in this film sleep at night?
8. Sepp Blatter’s balls again.
9. Could no one in the world have offered Tim Roth money to do literally anything else other than this? Being the runner for the voiceover artists of Paw Patrol would have more artistic merit than this
10. For a film that is all about fighting corruption, there is barely a scene conveying any actually taking place. Does this mean that whilst this film was happening I can subtly manifest a Zombie Apocalypse and Goat Orgy happening at the same time?
Right…I’ve reached delerium.
Time for the film…
It opens with the standard warning that its based on real events but elements are fictionalized etc etc. I’m not surprised because if anyone was actually like any of the characters in this film, they’d be subject to natural selection via cannon. We cut to several boys walking onto a dirt pitch by a beach whilst mellow piano music plays. It’s proper jumpers for goalposts stuff. Even a girl walks onto the pitch. LOOK AT US, WE ARE FIFA, WE ARE SO INCLUSIVE.
“Let’s get women to play in different and more feminine garb than the men, in tighter shorts for example.” — Sepp Blatter -the Gatekeeper of Women’s football January 2004
They kick-off and BOOM — with shakier cut than a surgeon after a night on cocaine — we’re back in some bygone era of somme-like pitches and men playing in leather caps. We find out its 1902 and a voiceover comes over the top droning about how football organisations keep springing up but “perhaps we need a central governing body for our game”.
Honestly, fucking strap in lads because I remember Dom Toretto saying something similar at the start of Fast & Furious 12 when he races that Ferrari round Neptune against Danny Trejo.
We then drop into Spring 1904 and a game is taking place, with more leather on display in the form of shin pads. We get introduced to some aspiring Euro Administrators when we are rudely interrupted by a men resembling Mr Monopoly yelling:
“ARE YOU PARALYZED MAN?! FOR PITYS’ SAKE KICK THE BALL! GENTLEMAN HOW DO YOU PROPOSE TO SCORE IF YOU NEVER SHOOT?!”
Now I don’t know about you, but language like this has no place at a football pitch or any other. You’ll be pleased to know that the man spouting this — Lord Kinnaird (pictured below looking like he’s picked an outfit for the wrong porn film) — is subsequently hung drawn and quartered. Well at least that was my hope.
Lord Kinnaird has a few lines of dialogue in this scene that sound like they’ve been written via a Windows pop-up saying “You look like you are trying to write some incredibly cliched, cringe inducing period nonsense about football. Would you like some help?”. Some absolutely exceptional accent work from Mr Germany, Mr France and Mr Holland then takes place as they threaten England with expulsion from International Games. When pressed on this, they have no clue what they’ll ban them from BUT THEY WILL ANYWAY FOR IT IS THE WAY OF THE FIFA. Lord Kinnaird even asks will the games be played “in the Sugar Beet fields over the other side of the channel?”. I’m not going to lie, this made me a bit uncomfortable given FIFA’s fine standing at dealing with Racism in football.
When asked if racism on the pitch was a problem, the FIFA president said: “ “I would deny it. There is no racism.
“There is maybe one of the players towards another — he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one.
“But the one who is affected by that, he should say: ‘This is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands.’ And this can happen, because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination.” — Sepp Blatter, Racism Tsar — June 2011
Lord Kinnaird might be the most evil man in cinema history. Along with being an absolutely world class bellend, Anthony Higgins gives the sort of performance that is usually reserved to second-year Drama students who’ve spent a week doing Ketamine and then thinking that they have nailed their impression of Daniel Day-Lewis. Watching him is that excruciating. But this is an absolute picnic compared to the next scene.
We jump to a scene in a smoky room with the worst accent I have ever heard in any film anywhere, so much so I’m not even sure it can be from the planet earth. It’s so bad that the entire cast of ‘Ello ‘Ello actually rose from the grave when I watched it and tried to set fire to my laptop for fear of setting anything more cod-french loose into the world. At this point I’m not even sure if it is a french accent. I lie awake at night wondering what part of Flemmish hell that this accent resides in. I pray for Tim Roth to turn up as his character from The Incredible Hulk and smash every single one of these characters and actors into dust. That’s right, I’m manifesting fictional characters to destory both the fictional and the non-fictional. I don’t care. I would summon a swarm of Hornets with acid filled with Mushrooms and let them sting me for 3 hours if it meant that I could speed this film up or go back in time and erase it from history and instead replace it with 110 minutes of Billy Bremner farting in pubs but that would be doing a disservice to Bremner. Fuck me.
They actually go round the table in the whole “I SPEAK FOR DENMARK — I SPEAK FOR SPAIN etc etc” and I don’t think a single accent sounds like its placed more than 40 miles from the centre of London. Mr Obertan the director has a lot to answer for, mainly why he didnt dismember the casting director for this film and do us all a favour. I’m assuming that the casting for this took place, but it could well have been like Jury Service.
But Jury Service for cunts.
Anyway, the pub/room etc start talking about getting a President and a Secretary for their organisation. Its really riveting stuff and I am not fast forwarding through a single part of this film.
I’ve spent 10 minutes trying to work out how many syllables he adds to Association. I was initially thinking he’s added 3. Now I think he’s on the nose its just that the accent is so bad that I cannot hear properly any more and I have suffered irreparable brain damage on account of the mind-numbing qualities of this film. It’s very possible. I’ve begun to halluciate a giant Sepp balloon following me everywhere reading platitudes like Yoda and even though i try to shoot him down with a crossbow made of Brie it haunts me…..
Anyway, then they all stand up and hold hands and shout “WE ARE FIFA” and some jaunty music kicks in. I hope to god that the violin strings are made out of cuts of the large intestines of every actor with a line in this. The non-speaking extras can purely have their tibia’s removed for woodwind.
We are 8:30 into the film now and I am exhausted. I am fully of the belief that watching this film may kill me. I hate it more than anything I have ever watched. And I hate FIFA.
TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR PART 2
