Here we have a great docudrama solely dedicated to the sport that all Europeans love: Football, yes FOOTBALL. Credit to the filmmakers for keeping it British in the sense they didn't crack and call it soccer this time round.
Mike Bassett: England Manager is a surreal yet glorious look at how the England manager is and can be treated by the English press and media following results. We get the superb feel of the film immediately as a familiar face is narrating and interviewing which makes it seem as if you're watching a genuine TV documentary on football but really, you're seeing a fictitious story on one of England worst/best managers ever.
The likeliness' to former manager Graham Taylor come pretty thick and fast when we're dealing with the World cup Qualifying segment and all though he never actually lost a home qualifier at Wembley, (That was Hoddle) we are still feeling the pain and frustrating that we would with any England home defeat, let alone to the Poles of whom we ALWAYS seem to draw in the qualifying stages- they are often seen as the 'old enemy' in preliminary stages.
The fact that we see England almost manage to 'scrap through in the end' and little things like that such as relying on another team to win after a disappointing result can be likened to real life experiences and can really remind us of the sheer gut-ache and nervousness all England fans have been through in the past. The pain, the glory, the moments where you just can't look. Of course, all these emotions just come when you're an England fan and they seem to creep back now and again here. Similar to 'The Blair Witch Project', "Just keep telling yourself it's a movie!"
Where terrible pain, comes devine retribution and the fact that a few of the results in this film DID in fact come true is rather a spooky twist. It appears the filmmakers tried to create drama and heartache by making the events in this film happen. They obviously thought it would make for good viewing. Oddly enough, just a year later, the exact same results against the exact same teams in similar rounds happened only in the REAL thing: World Cup 2002. So the fictional drama events was classy - and that transforms into non-fiction drama events, ie the real matches in the real World Cup. The same things happen and the same feeling dawns- immense joy and satisfaction at one point, 'so close' heartache at another.
All in all, this delightful look at the England managers job and England's football in general is a delight and there are just enough moments to keep you interested and alert that it IS a comedy. Such as training with a pretend football and the assistant England coach giving a jumbled reply when being interviewed with very basic questions. There's something in the film that ALL us Football fans can relate to.
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